June 23 Monday – From Livy’s diary:
Little Susy is very well indeed, she creeps all about the room, eats meat and potato for her breakfast every morning and is fat and hearty as possible—Nellie takes care of her now nights. I am out so much that I need my unbroken sleep [Salsbury 20].
June 22 Sunday – The Clemens family and Kate Field dined at the Dilkes [MTL 5: 375n1]. Kate Field, in a letter to the New York Tribune, wrote of the evening:
June 19 Thursday – Sam wrote from Edwards’ Hotel in London to George Fitzgibbon. His Shah letters, and the move to Langham Hotel the following Wednesday were among the reasons Sam gave for not being able to accompany Fitz to a session of Parliament, which Fitz reported on for the Darlington Northern Echo [MTL 5: 385].
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England.
June 18 Wednesday – Sam and Thompson returned from Ostend on the H.M.S. Lively. The pair traveled with some of the Shah’s family and several journalists who had accompanied the Shah on the train from Brussels [MTL 5: 384n1]. Once back in London, Sam wrote to Elisha Bliss that he had
Ostend is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium.
June 17 Tuesday – Sam and his secretary Thompson left London and crossed over the channel to Ostend, Belgium to cover the visit of the Shah of Persia, Nasr-ed-Din, the first leader of his country to visit Europe. Sam stayed overnight in Ostend.
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is a historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster.
June 15 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Edwards’ Hotel to the American consul general in London, Adam Badeau (1831-1895). Sam sent his and Livy’s regrets they’d been unable to visit due to Livy being “very greatly fatigued because of sight-seeing” [MTL 5: 382]. Notes: Badeau had been on General Sherman’s staff during the Civil War, and the military secretary for General Grant&n
June 14 Saturday – Sam called on Joaquin Miller and they went to the Savage Club [MTL 5: 378n3]. Sam’s “letter” to Josh Billings ran in Street and Smith’s New York Weekly [The Twainian, Feb. 1944 p1]. (See Mar. 1873 entry).
John Camden Hotten (1832-1873), unauthorized publisher of many of Mark Twain’s sketches, died in London [Welland 28].