Day By Day Dates

September 26 Tuesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, advising him to learn his lectures by heart, and describing “a trick” he learned in Vienna, by accident—to carry a book and use it to talk with, gesture with and making it seem he was not reading it. Sam also had read the recent installment of Howells’ Their Silver Wedding Journey in Harper’s, which he thought “delicious— every word of it. You haven’t lost any of your splendid art” [MTHL 2: 705-6].

September 27 Wednesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. On the left corner of the envelope: “Dear Mr. Rogers: Won’t you please examine & correct the enclosed & send it to Gilder & ask him to cable?” [MTP; not in MTHHR]. Note: the enclosed is not known.

Jonas Henrick Kellgren Osteopath billed Sam £300.6.0 for “treatment board and lodging to the 27 Sept. inclusive” [1899 Financial file MTP].

September 28 Thursday – The Clemens family likely spent the day in Götenburg.

September 29 Friday – The Clemens family left Götenburg by ship to London.

September 30 Saturday – In his Oct. 1 to Franklin G. Whitmore, Sam detailed the Clemens’ family arrival in London:

October – Sam wrote “Private” to Richard Watson Gilder:

“Can’t you send to Professor Henry Ferguson, Trinity College, Hartford, & get him to photograph a page or two of Samuel Ferguson’s Diary for reproduction?”

October 1 Sunday – At the Queen Anne Residential Mansions & hotel, London, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss.

We reached England last night. May remain here till spring, to let Jean continue the treatment which is restoring her health.

I have signed the application for copyright & will send it.

What have the Harpers to do with my English editions?

Mrs. Clemens hereby acknowledges receipt of your check for $2246.34.

October 3 Tuesday – In New York, Katharine I. Harrison wrote a short note to Sam, enclosing James Henry Wiggin’s letter (see Sept. 30) [MTHHR 411].

October 4 Wednesday – In the a.m. in London, England, the Clemens family inspected various housing possibilities, and found one they liked that would be available in about ten days. Evidently they didn’t find the accommodations at Queen Anne Residential Mansions & hotel suitable; [Oct. 4 to MacAlister]. Note: The family needed to be close to Henrick Kellgren’s facility, since Jean needed daily sessions there. They settled on 30 Wellington Court, Albert Gate.

October 5 Thursday – At the Queen Anne Residential Mansions & hotel London, Sam finished his Oct. 4 letter to H.H. Rogers.

P.S. Oct 4. ’99 [Sam misdated here]. As I said yesterday (and also in my letter to Harper) I don’t want Harper to hamper Bliss in adding the new short-story book to the Uniform. I think, also, that Harper should have no ownership in the plates made for the new book for the Uniform, and receive no royalty from Bliss on the book….Ain’t that your judgment?

October 6 Friday – A bill was given to Sam from Queen Anne Residential Mansions & hotel for this date in the amount of £25.11.8 for the period Sept. 30 to Oct. 6; it was paid on Oct. 12 [1899 Financial file MTP]. Note: there is no other bill in the files for the Queen Anne; it is assumed they moved after this day to 30 Wellington Court (Albert Gate).

October 9 Monday – In New York, William Dean Howells wrote to Sam.

October 11 Wednesday – On a day when England’s ultimatum to the Boers expired and war was to begin, Sam wrote a squib, just to whom has not been determined..

October 12 Thursday – At 30 Wellington Court, London, Sam replied to James Henry Wiggin’s Sept. 30 letter. Wiggin was one of the editors who revised Mary Baker Eddy’s “bible.”

October 14 Saturday – At 30 Wellington Court (Albert Gate) London, Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow.

(Don’t give that address away)

We waited and waited and yearned and yearned for you two Bigelows last night and you horribly disappointed us. See that you do better tomorrow night.

October 15 Sunday – Rene Doumic’s article “Revue Litteraire: Nos Humoristes” ran in the Revue des Deux Mondes, p. 924-5. Tenney: “Brief mention of MT (p. 932), citing The Stolen White Elephant as an example of his works famous in the English- and German-speaking countries” [30].

October 16 Monday – At 30 Wellington Court (Albert Gate) in London, Sam wrote, a short note of introduction for Mark Hambourg to Richard Watson Gilder. Hambourg was an accomplished Russian pianist and student of Leschetizky in Vienna [MTP].

Sam also wrote a similar note of introduction to Georgiana R. Laffan (Mrs. William Mackay Laffan).

October 17 Tuesday – At 30 Wellington Court (Albert Gate) in London, Sam sent a telegram to Percy Spalding: “CANNOT LUNCH TILL AFTER SEVERAL DAYS WILL EXPLAIN CLEMENS” [MTP].

October 19 Thursday – At 30 Wellington Court (Albert Gate) in London, Sam replied to William Dean Howells’ Oct. 9 letter. Sam told of writing the Introduction to the Official Trial records of Joan of Arc to be published by T. Douglas Murray, and also about Basil Wilberforce asking him to speak “in his drawing room to the Dukes & Earls & M.P.’s” about Joan, which he couldn’t do because it would have taken him out of his seclusion.

October 20 Friday – In London, Sam wrote on his calling card to T. Douglas Murray: “When I made it appear to my wife, My dear Mr. Murray, that you manifested an interest (which I enlarged,) in my portrait, she was mightily pleased, & hopes you will not regard it as an intrusion if she begs you to let her offer you this one” [MTP: ebay.com item #2254961173]. Note: evidently this card accompanied a photo of Sam as a gift.

October 21 Saturday – A New York Times article datelined London, Oct. 21, which ran Oct. 22, p.7, “Gen. Harrison in London,” cites Mark Twain was among the invitees to a banquet on Oct. 25. Sam did not go, as he was declining all public appearances for the present. See Oct. 26 to Whitmore.

Academy (London), p.445 ran a brief quotation from Mark Twain on his Christian Science article in Cosmopolitan [Tenney 30].

October 25 Wednesday – At 30 Wellington Court (Albert Gate) in London, Sam wrote to H. Walter Barnett, photographer, complimenting him on recent pictures taken, writing that they “have the distinctions of their predecessors,” and that Barnett didn’t seem to know how to make a bad one [MTPO].

October 26 Thursday – In London, England, Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, who evidently had requested more money for taxes and other expenses.

Such money as is in Mr. Rogers’s hands draws interest & we don’t want to disturb it; so I am enclosing a request that Bliss let you have it. I do it without blushing, for I have been spending a hundred dollars’ worth of time to beguile the Harpers to make a concession or two in Bliss’s favor & by this morning’s mail they have done it & will so inform Mr. Rogers…

October 27 Friday – Samuel S. McClure wrote from N.Y. to Sam that he’d cabled his brother in London to see if they couldn’t get some articles and stories from Mark Twain for their magazine—“That seems to be the only important magazine that does not get struck by your lightning; you are in Harper’s and the Century, and even in the Cosmopolitan, but you are not with us” [MTP]. Note: every significant editor seemed to notice the unauthorized piece that Bliss had given Cosmopolitan.

October 28 Saturday – Sam drafted “My First Lie and How I Got Out of It,” which would run in the Sunday supplement of the N.Y. World of Dec. 10, 1899 [Oct. 30 to Alden; Budd, Collected 2: 1005]. Note: On Dec. 20, 1901 Frederick A. Duneka of the World wrote to Sam and mentioned that the subject for this “First Lie” piece “having been suggested by myself through Mr Tuohy in London in ’99.”