Day By Day Dates

October 29 Thursday – In London Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus.

1. Please send me two proofs of Max O’Rell [Bourget] article. I wish to send one to Harper.

2. When am I to send next cheque for rent? To whose order shall it be drawn? And won’t it be best for me to send it through you? Also, what is the amount?

October 31 Saturday – In London Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus.

Am very much obliged. I enclose the house-rent cheque drawn to your order, for £90.2.0. I believe this completes the payment of the house-rent for the first 6 months. Mr. Garth’s address is — — — damn, I’ve begun on the wrong page — is / 3 Polstead Road / Oxford.

Sam added after his signature a request for them to tell any inquirers that he was “entirely out of the lecture field” [MTP].

November – Gribben writes,

At the end of a list of books that Clemens read in London in November 1896 appears “2 Years in F. — Lytton Forbes” (NB 37, TS 26). Subsequently he quoted from Forbes’ book (merely citing “Forbes’s ‘Two Years in Fiji’”) in chapter 8 of FE (1897), where he presented Forbes’s account of two foreigners who mysteriously appeared in Fiji and whose homeland could never be determined. [235] Note: Arthur Forbes, Two Years in Fiji (1875).

November 1 Sunday – In London Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, thinking that perhaps J. Henry Harper was “disgruntled” because he was “purposing” to give the new book (FE) to Frank Bliss.

November 2 Monday – In London Sam wrote to Bram Stoker, asking that a man be fired:

As you may know, I have lately lost my eldest daughter. For this reason I & my wife go nowhere & see nobody; otherwise I would call upon you or ask you to visit me.

November 3 Tuesday – William McKinley defeated Williams Jennings Bryan in a campaign centering on free silver. Sam had hoped the silver men would win out, thus allowing him to pay his creditors with somewhat devalued currency (H.H. Rogers was a McKinley man).

November 4 Wednesday Sam’s notebook for this day:

Clara went with Mrs. Hopekirk Wilson yesterday & saw a young English girl of 20 (pupil of Letzitinski’s) play before an audience for the first time. The girl’s name is Goodson, Clara says she is not pretty, but has a most interesting face [NB 39 TS 19]. Helen Hopekirk Wilson (1856-1945).

November 6 Friday – In London Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

I am very glad indeed that the contract is accomplished at last, both for your patient indomitable sake and for my sake — I can work the better now. And I am glad of what you say of Harry Harper. He always seemed to me to be a frank and straightforward man and a man of a good heart and an obliging disposition.

November 7 Saturday – Two copies of Tom Sawyer, Detective were received by the U.S. Copyright Office. The earliest copies of the first edition were published in Nov. or Dec. 1896 [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” The Stolen White Elephant and Other Detective Stories, Afterword materials, p.27 1996 Oxford ed.].

November 8 Sunday – In London Sam wrote to Henry C. Robinson, grateful and touched by a speech Robinson made. He remarked how it would have stirred Susy.

It was a beautiful speech, dear old friend, & I am glad you thought of me & sent it to me. I could see you — see you plainly, & hear every note of your voice, every inflection [MTP].

November 10 Tuesday – Katharine I. Harrison wrote to Sam, responding to his Oct. 20 note enclosed with his letter to Rogers.

Dear Mr. Clemens:

November 11 Wednesday – In London Sam heard Israel Zangwill lecture and entered in his notebook:

Went out to Swiss Cottages, per underground RR with Smythe, & heard Zangwill on the Jewish Ghetto. Very fine & bright. Knowledge boiled down. Pemmican in fact. Substance enough in it to furnish forth 5 ordinary lectures [Gribben 796; NB 39 TS 23].

November 13 Friday – In London Sam sent a clipping and short request to Chatto & Windus asking for a copy of A Sketch of the Natural History of Australia (1896) by F.G. Aflalo [MTP]. See Gribben 12.

In the evening Sam also wrote to Andrew Chatto Jr.

Dear Mr. Chatto junior:

You know about bicycles & I and my daughters don’t. We are going up into Regent street to lay in a couple for family use.

November 14 Saturday ca. – In London on or about this day Sam wrote a short paragraph to Frederic W.H. Myers. Significantly he gave his Tedworth Square address, which heretofore he’d kept secret.

6 p.m. Tuesday the 17th will suit me exceedingly well. But it seems very unfair to make you come to me to do me a favor.

Sam suggested he might come to Myers [MTP]. The nature of the favor or Myers identity is not given.

November 15 Sunday — Sam’s notebook for this day:

At Bram Stoker’s, 18 St. Leonard’s Terrace. Anthony Hope was there [NB 39 TS 25].

November 16 Monday – Frank E. Bliss for American Publishing Co. wrote Sam that the copyright for IA “will not be legally ripe for renewal before Jan. 29th 1897.” The former copyright was taken out in the company’s name; this time it would be taken out in Sam’s name with quick assignment made to Livy to avoid complications from the bankruptcy. Bliss asked when the new book might be completed. [MTP]. Note: Sam asked Bliss to refer back to this letter on Jan.

November 17 Tuesday – In London Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus that he’d finished the proofs, and wanted to send the proofs of the Bourget article to Harpers once they had been corrected and made ready for the press [MTP].

November 18 Wednesday – In London Sam wrote two short notes to Chatto & Windus. In the first he noted “The book has come. Many thanks,” and enclosed something he wished to “shove” into the material going to Harper’s, not revealing he’d written it. In the second note he changed his mind:

I think it better to suppress the squib I mailed you to-day. It is not worth the powder, & moreover I find that the position taken is not invulnerable [MTP].

November 20 Friday – In London, Sam had received the Bliss-Harper contracts from H.H. Rogers and considered them for three hours before responding to Rogers.

The contracts clear my head.

November 22 Sunday – In London Sam wrote a letter of thanks to the junior Andrew Chatto for the bicycles he’d helped secure. He wrote that his daughters were “charmed with the machines” and the family thanked him. He asked the sum of what he owed for them so he might send a check [MTP].

November 24 Tuesday – In London Sam wrote to the Players Club. His note ran in the Dec. 31, 1896 N.Y. Tribune.

November 26 Thursday – Thanksgiving – In London Sam wrote in his notebook:

We did not celebrate it. Seven years ago Susy gave her play for the first time [MTB 1027].

He also wrote to Emilie R. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers)  “For & in behalf of Helen Kellar…” (Sam was consistent in misspelling Helen Keller’s name.)

November 27 Friday – Livy’s 51st birthday. Sam wrote Livy a short note “With worlds of love” to her:

We have lost her, & our life is bitter. We may find her again — let us not despair of it. God knows how much poorer were by this loss than we were before; but we still have the others, & that is much; & also we have each other, my darling, & this is riches.

November 28 Saturday Sam’s notebook for this day:

November 30 Monday – Sam’s 61st Birthday.

Livy wrote to Andrew Chatto Jr. “Enclosed please find the check for the Swifts [bicycles] which you so kindly helped us to get. I think my daughters find cycling quite another thing now that they have their own machines” [MTP].