November 6 Monday – In New York Sam spent the afternoon talking to the actor Joe Jefferson, who dropped into the Players Club to see him. Later in the day Sam wrote to daughter Susy, asking her help in comforting her mother while he was away. With the intercession of Rogers, Sam still hoped for riches from the typesetter.
November 5 Sunday – In New York Sam dined with the William Mackay Laffans [Nov. 6 to Susy]. A declined invitation from Andrew Carnegie to John Elderkin, Secretary of the Lotos Club, names this date and his inability to meet “my friend — everybody’s friend — Mark Twain” on Sunday [MTP: Nov. 3 Carnegie to Elderkin]. Note: this suggests the dinner was a Lotos Club affair.
November 4 Saturday – In New York, Sam gave a reading at the Uncut Leaves Society. See John D. Barry, “New York Letter,” Literary World (Boston), 24; 18 Nov. 1893, p.385. The Hartford Daily Courant, Nov. 11, 1893, p.4 “Society Notes” reported that Sam and Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923), children’s author and educator, were among the readers. Wiggin is best known for The Birds’ Christmas Carol (1887) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).
November 3 Friday – In New York Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens that he’d “mapped out a long novel to-day, & will bury myself in it to-morrow….” Note: The story was “Tom Sawyer Detective,” which LLMT p.277 calls “an ingenious but uninspired yarn not published until August and September 1896 in Harper’s Magazine.” Sam also wrote about daughter Clara’s trip.
November 2 Thursday – In New York Sam wrote to daughter Clara. He wanted her to be sure to call “immediately” on the widow Frau Alice von Versen in Berlin; she would need to inquire as the house they were living in had been supplied by the German government. He remarked Clara had been gone 55 hours and was well on her way across the Atlantic. He admonished her to find an escort for the long trip from Berlin to Paris, one who would be satisfactory to Livy, who was worried about the matter.
November 1 Wednesday – Sam inscribed a copy of HF to Francis Wilson: Salutation and Best Wishes to Francis Wilson from Mark Twain. New York, Nov. 1, 1893 [MTP].
The Brooklyn Eagle, along with other newspapers, announced on p.4:
THE NEW NOVEL BY MARK TWAIN
November – Tom Sawyer Abroad appeared as a serial in the November issue of St. Nicholas Magazine. “The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance” ran in the Cosmopolitan. This sketch was later collected in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900), and My Debut as a Literary Person, Etc. (1903) [Budd, Collected 2: 1001].
October 31 Tuesday – At 10 a.m. in New York, Sam shipped out daughter Clara on the liner Allee, bound for Europe. Clara was accompanied by Miss Katherine Willard, daughter of Clara’s Berlin schoolmaster. Later Sam wrote to Mary Mapes Dodge that Clara had just left and that if she had missed seeing her altogether, he guessed “the dentist was the reason.” He would be at her place for dinner on Thursday Nov. 2 by himself, unless she notified him otherwise [MTP].
October 30 Monday – Sam returned to New York with daughter Clara [Oct. 27 to Elderkin].
October 29 Sunday – Sam was in Hartford staying with the Charles Dudley Warners [Oct. 27 to Elderkin].