Day By Day Dates

August 10 Saturday – Bill paid to Putnam Phalanx Market, Hartford grocers; purchases made Aug. 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10: $6 [MTP].

August 11 Sunday – Sam wrote from New Saybrook to Orion Clemens, giving Aug. 21 as his sailing date to England, on what Joseph L. Blamire called “The Crack Steamer of the Cunard Line,” the Scotia. While lying around Saybrook, Sam had formulated his idea for a better scrapbook, and sent details and a drawing to his brother to keep as proof of the date of invention.

August 14, Wednesday – Sam wrote from New Saybrook to Joseph L. Blamire of Routledge & Sons, letter & check for $150 not extant but referred to in Blamire’s of Aug. 15.

August 15 Thursday – Joseph L. Blamire for Routledge & Sons wrote to Sam, having rec’d his note of Aug. 14 with check for $150 for a ticket to Liverpool. Since he didn’t know how long Clemens would be at Saybrook, he’d hold the ticket in NYC [MTP].

August 16 Friday – Sam telegraphed from Saybrook Point to Mollie Clemens: “Send down all my white pants” [MTL 5: 147]. Note: even then, Sam liked to wear white, though while Livy was alive, only in season.

August 18 Sunday – Sam left Saybrook for Hartford, where he probably spent the night [MTL 5: 149n1].

August 19 Monday – Sam wrote poetically from Hartford to Livy, still in Saybrook, Conn.

August 20 Tuesday – Sam wrote from New York to Livy, after buying exchange for some English gold coins, buying a hat and books for the trip. Charley Langdon and wife Ida arrived at the hotel late. Charley brought two boxes of cigars from Theodore Crane for Sam. Sam wrote he was going to dinner with “the Harper’s Drawer man & Will M. Carleton the farm-ballad writer.” William A.

August 21 Wednesday – Sam departed New York, bound for England on the Scotia. Bills paid to Putnam Phalanx Market, grocers $5.43; to T.S. Daniels for oats, etc. $4.80 [MTP].

August 29 Thursday – Sam wrote from the SS Scotia, en route to Liverpool, England, to Livy. Sam missed her already [MTL 5: 151].

August 30 Friday – The Scotia reached Queenstown, Ireland at 8 AM. Sam sent a telegraph to Livy [MTL 5: 152n3].

Livy paid Flower & Hills, grocers $7.05 [MTP].

August 31 Saturday – The Scotia reached Liverpool [MTL 5: 152n3].

In Hartford, Hatch & Tyler delivered coal to the Clemens home [MTP].

September – Sometime during the month, Sir John Bennett (1814-1897) wrote Sam, enclosing Anthony Trollope’s calling card [MTP].

The first of Sam’s two visits to the Doré Gallery, London [MTL 5: 614-21].

September 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Liverpool, England to Livy.

Livy darling, I wonder if you are back home yet; & I wonder how the Muggins is [pet name for Susy]. & what she looks like. I seem only a stone’s-throw from you & cannot persuade myself that this is a foreign land & that an ocean rolls between us. I feel very near to you.

September 2 Monday – Sam probably spent the first two nights in Liverpool and on this day boarded a train for London. In 1907 he remembered sitting across from a man on the train who was reading Innocents Abroad. The man did not laugh or even smile [MTL 5: 153].

September 4 Wednesday – Bill paid to Squires Grocers for purchases made Aug. 28, 29, 30, 31, Sept. 2, 4 totaling $6.11 [MTP].

September 6 Friday – Sam gave a dinner speech at the Whitefriars Club in London at the Mitre Tavern (Published in Mark Twain Speaking, p. 72-73). Sam was treated like a conquering hero, wined and dined and escorted to many sights. He was a sensation in London.

September 7 Saturday – Sam, along with Tom Hood, make a call on John Camden Hotten’s office. Sam went under the assumed name of “Mr. Bryce” to look over the man who had been publishing unauthorized copies of Mark Twain’s work in England. Hotten recognized Sam right away, but Sam stuck to being Bryce, and looked “glum and stern” [MTL 5: 165n1]. See Sept.

September 9 Monday – Sam spent the day sightseeing with James R. Osgood, the Boston publisher who was vacationing in England. They visited the Kenilworth ruins, Warwick Castle and Stratford on Avon [MTL 5: 155]. Sam would use Warwick Castle in the opening scene of A Connecticut Yankee.

September 11 Wednesday – Sam wrote from London to Livy about the great time he was having, though he wrote, “I accomplish next to nothing…. Have not written in my journal for 4 days—don’t get time. Real pleasant people here” [MTL 5: 154-5].

September 12 Thursday – Sam had several photographs taken at the studio of W. & A.H.

September 13–November 11 Monday – Sometime between these dates Sam wrote a note to Henry Lee, mover and shaker in the building of the Brighton Aquarium. He developed a strong friendship with Lee. Sam wrote in his notebook:

September 14 Saturday – Bill paid to Putnam Phalanx Market, grocers $14.38 [MTP].

September 15 Sunday – Sam wrote from London to Livy. Sam was being pressured to lecture in London but he resisted.

“On Tuesday I mean to hang a card to my key-box, inscribed ‘Gone out of the City for a week’—& then I shall go to work & work hard. One can’t be caught in a hive of 4,000,000 people, like this” [MTL 5: 160].

Sam also wrote a short note to James R. Osgood, enclosing a photograph of himself [MTP, drop-in letters].

September 16 Monday – Sam had lunch with John Lawrence Toole (1830-1909), comic actor [MTL 5: 592n13]. Sam first met Toole in London in Sept. 1872 [MTNJ 1: 2: 296n11].