July 30 Wednesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. “The proposition to W. suggested in your letter of July 28 is satisfactory. You can make it whenever you think best. I will approve” [MTP]. Note: likely Sidney A. Witherbee who was negotiating for the purchase of the Hartford house.
July 29 Tuesday – In Kittery Point, Maine, William Dean Howells wrote to Sam, jokingly calling him:
Dear Mr. President: / I am sorry that the poem [Howell’s poem, “The Mother” to be published in Harper’s for Dec. 1902] has gone to Harper’s Magazine. If it comes back, either in proof or MS. it shall be sent to Mrs. Roosevelt [Livy] promptly.
This will be handed to you by my son, who will now be satisfied with the Russian embassy [MTHL 2: 743].
July 28 Monday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
I’m enclosing the check but not the interest. I don’t ever pay interest until I have examined into a thing & ascertained whether there is a legal way of avoiding it or not. I have generally found this to be a good business method.
July 27 Sunday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Paul Kester in Accotiuk, Va..
I will refer you to Mr. Erlanger and Miss Marbury. I have told Mr. [Abraham] Erlanger that I would not sanction a Tom Sawyer play until after the staging of Huck Finn (Nov. 2/02) & not then without talking with him about it first. I mention Miss Marbury because she is my agent, & such matters properly pass through her hands [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Klaw & Erlanger, dramatic agents.
July 26 Saturday – Jean Clemens’ 22nd birthday.
July 25 Friday – Livy wrote a short note to Frank Bliss: “The semi-yearly statement and the check for seventy three hundred and sixty four & 36/100 dollars is safely rec’d.Thank you for it” [MTP].
July 24 Thursday – Frederick A. Duneka wrote to Sam, enclosing a check for $4,669.20 on the six-book set sold up to June 30, with projected $11,000 additional royalties due Dec. 31, making the total for 1902 of about $16,565.60 [MTP].
July 23 Wednesday – Frank Bliss wrote to Sam, that he had to come home (Hartford) “to attend to some matters, but I send this note to let you know that I got that option alright & will see you in course of a couple of days in regard to [it]” [MTP].
American Publishing Co. sent a draft to Livy for $7,364.36, which included $793.35 for sales of old edtions, $4,101.56 for Underwood sets edition, $2,500 colected on sales of “fine limited edtions”—all less $30.55 on books charged [MTP].
July 19 Saturday – Speaker Magazine, p. 441-2 , ran a review of “A Double Barrelled Detective Story.” Tenney: “Chiefly descriptive: ‘…shows Mark Twain’s weaknesses as well as his strengths, but at its worst is a story that ought not to be missed’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 187].
July 18 Friday – In York Harbor, Sam wrote to an unidentified person. The Camperdown Chronicle of Victoria, Australia, p.5, carried this article, which contains Sam’s reply to a gentleman who had discovered a library in Venice, Italy containing thousands of books yet only one in English, LM.