November 30 Friday – Sam’s 59th Birthday.

Two copies of PW were deposited with the US Copyright Office [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.28, 1996 Oxford ed.]

November 29 Thursday – Thanksgiving – In Paris Sam wrote to Henry C. Robinson, having received the wedding cards from his daughter’s wedding. Sam was sorry they wouldn’t be there and sent his congratulations. He related being “knocked down with gout in both ankles,” and though he was “up & about the house, now,” he was “not to go out for a week or two yet.”

Mrs. Clemens’s health is remarkably good & everybody remarks upon how well she looks. Susy is well again, & fatting up.

November 28 Wednesday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. He was out of bed finally, not sure how long he’d been there:

…the fog is thick, the daylight is black, & I feel defeated & in a state of surrender to fate.

November 27 Tuesday – Livy’s 49th birthday.

November 21 Wednesday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, dictating the letter to daughter Clara, who added a “d” to Rogers’ name. Sam related the hard attack of the gout he’d had for a couple of weeks, which kept them at the hotel longer than they’d planned. He’d stayed in bed at the new house since. It seems that all of the Clemens girls inherited their mother’s spelling ability, something Sam teased Livy about during their courting days.

November 20 Tuesday – In the evening, at 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam suffered another attack of gout in his other ankle [Nov. 21 to Rogers].

November 17 Saturday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam stayed in bed to recover from his bronchitis and gout.

November 16 Friday – At the Brighton Hotel in Paris, Sam wrote three paragraphs to Franklin G. Whitmore, the first about attending to the rugs in the Hartford house; the second to advise when he needed money for the household expenses there to apply to Rogers’ legal firm of Stern & Rushmore because the money from the American Publishing Co. (PW ) went to them; the third was a brief progress report on the rental house he would go to in one hour.

November 15 Thursday – In the morning at the Brighton Hotel in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers of being laid up since Nov. 12 with the gout and of the doctor’s treatments on Nov. 13. He expected to go to the new house this day.