Day By Day Dates

April 14 Sunday – In Paris at 169 rue de l’Universite, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

Yours of the 2d [not extant] has come, and it is a very genuine pleasure to me to know that I am missed. I had such a good homelike time there that I missed the house and everybody in it and found it lonesome in the ship and hard to reconcile myself to the change.

April 15 Monday – Sam signed the agreement with Harper & Brothers sent by Henry M.Alden on Apr. 3 to publish JA and TS,Detective. At the foot of the third page Sam wrote,

If at any time during the serial publication of Joan of Arc my nom de plume should be appended to it as author, I am to receive, after that, $15 per 1000 words additional, thence to the end. This is the only omission I notice in the above [contract] S.L. Clemens, Paris Apl. 15/95 [MTP].

April 20 Saturday – The New York Times, p.3 “Literary Notes,” ran the following, which shows how quickly Sam’s style was recognized by readers of PW in serial form in Harper’s Monthly:

April 23 Tuesday – In Paris at 169 rue de l’Universite, Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper, about the planned Uniform Edition of his works, about a 3,000 word short, “Mental Telegraphy Again,” he was sending to Henry Loomis Nelson for Harper’s Weekly, and about a contract he was about to sign: 

April 25 Thursday – At 4 a.m. in Paris at 169 rue de l’Universite, Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow:

April 26 Friday – In Paris at 169 rue de l’Universite, Sam wrote two paragraphs to Francis de Winton a friend of the Marquis of Lorne who later was appointed by King Leopold to take Henry M. Stanley’s place in the Congo. He was a recognized authority of central Africa. Sam announced his world tour that he’d signed an agreement for the day before (Apr. 25), and mentioned Stanley and other friends who’d given him letters of introduction for the tour.

April 28 Sunday – In Paris at 169 rue de l’Universite, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, announcing that the arrangements for the down under, India and South Africa tour had been made. He was still concerned about creditors hounding him if he lectured in the U.S. — if he could get away with it he would sail from Vancouver, B.C. Aug. 16 without succumbing to them. On the matter of his Uniform Edition:

April 29 Monday – In Paris at 169 rue de l’Universite, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. All the trunks and family had left Sam behind in the empty house:

I have been hidden an hour or two, reading proof of Joan, and now I think I am a lost child. I can’t find anybody on the place. The baggage has all disappeared, including the family. I reckon that in the hurry and bustle of moving to the hotel [Brighton] they forgot me. But it is no matter. It is peacefuller now than I have known it for days and days and days.

May – In Paris before May 12, Sam inscribed a copy of P&P to F.S. Reynolds: To / Mr. F.S. Reynolds / with the compliments of / The Author. / Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economise it. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Paris, May/95 [MTP].

May 1 Wednesday – At the Hotel Brighton, Paris, France Sam wrote to Miss Goodridge, declining an invitation for Livy and him to dine on May 3. He pled being “gout-smitten once more, not able to put my foot to the floor all this day,” and he doubted what his condition would be by then. Another engagement also entered into his decision:

May 2 Thursday – In Paris, the Clemenses may have attended a play in the evening, the “Mr Mapes’s play” referred to in his May 1 to Miss Goodridge. Several other letters in this period do not reveal the answer. Mr. Mapes may have been related to Mary Mapes Dodge.

At the Hotel Brighton, Sam also wrote to Poultney Bigelow, who evidently upon learning of the failure of Webster & Co., had sent a check for a thousand dollars. Sam couldn’t keep it:

May 5 Sunday – In Paris Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus. He’d received “that little book” and thanked them (title not given). He announced they would sail from Vancouver, B.C. on Aug. 16 and begin reading in Sydney or Melbourne in September, then reach India in mid-January, 1896. Livy and daughter Clara would accompany him.

May 6 Monday – Andrew Chatto wrote to Sam that they’d made arrangements with Harper to “take a duplicate set of electros of the illustrations to” JA for the English edition, and would make “the best arrangements…for translations and with Tauchnitz for the Continental edition” [MTP].

May 7 Tuesday – In Paris Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto.

I am very glad you have arranged for Joan, and that I am to remain with you and not go wandering among strangers.

May 10 Friday – In Paris Sam wrote to John D. Adams, editor at The Century Co., having just received the proofs, he guessed for Oct. issue. He suggested one slight change, but found “nothing else but some misplaced commas & periods — of no consequence.” He added after his signature, “We leave to-night for America” [MTP].

The Clemens family, not together in America since 1891, left Paris for Southampton.

May 11 Saturday – In Southampton, England, the Clemens family sailed for New York on the S.S. New York. The voyage would take seven days [MTHHR 134]. Note: Sam later called this the beginning of the world tour.

The Critic, XXVI p.338-9 reviewed PW, which it called “admirable in atmosphere, local color and dialect, a drama in its way, full of powerful situations, thrilling even; but it cannot be called in any sense literature” [Tenney 24].

May 12 Sunday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York. Sam’s notebook on board:

Sunday morning. Six or eight people who came over with me in the Paris the other day. Three or four of them went up to London with our multi-millionaire to be shown his glories. It was a month ago; but to this day these men can think of nothing else, talk of nothing else. They are as happy & stunned & blessed as if they had been to heaven & dined with God [NB 34 TS 9].

May 13 Monday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York.

May 14 Tuesday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York.

May 15 Wednesday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York.

Livy wrote to H.H. Rogers: “Please honor Mr. Clemens’s drafts upon such funds of mine as are in your hands, & greatly oblige” [MTP].

May 16 Thursday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York.

May 17 Friday – The Clemens family was en route on the SS NewYork to New York. After a concert aboard ship, Sam gave two readings for the usual Seaman’s Fund charity. The Brooklyn Eagle, May 18, 1895, p.2. “MARK TWAIN GAVE READINGS” reported:

At the Concert on the American Line Steamer New York.

May 18 Saturday – The S.S. New York arrived in New York at 9 a.m. with the Clemens family aboard. [N.Y. Times, May 18, 1895, p.6 “Incoming Steamships. To-day, (Saturday) May 18”; NB 34 TS 9; MTHHR 134]. Note: the latter source says the family “went immediately to Elmira,” but Sam wrote Frank Mayo on May 19 and gave a curtain speech on May 22; his first letter from Elmira was May 24 to J.B.

May 19 Sunday – In New York at H.H. Rogers’ office, Sam wrote to Frank Mayo, asking for three tickets to the PW play. Evidently he’d asked for two prior to this, his first request not extant:

I made a mistake. I wanted to ask for 3 seats for Miss Harrison, instead of 2. If not too late, won’t you mail 3 to her, Care H.H. Rogers, 26 Broadway?

May 20 Monday – The Boston Daily Globe, p.5 ran an unsigned New York interview done with Sam at the Everett House (not in Scharnhorst):

IT PAYS TO KICK.

Mark Twain Says So in All Seriousness.

Believes in Complaining to the Responsible Head.

Cites Discourtesies in Our Every Day Life.

Approves of Reform and Tells How to Get Redress.

“I Suppose We Are Born Timid,” He Says.