January – Sam wrote a long, newsy letter sometime during the month from Munich, Germany to an unidentified person. he was working on A Tramp Abroad and mentioned that a big octavo book, “requires a long pull and an almighty steady one.” Sam missed New England weather:

“I ache for a good honest all day, all night snowstorm, with a wind-up gale of 150 miles an hour and 35 degrees below zero. that is the only kind of weather that is fit and right for January” [MTLE 4: 1].

January 4 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

Went to Grossen Kirschof & saw 15 or 20 dead [Southern Cemetery of Munich]

January 5 Sunday – Susan & Charles Dudley Warner wrote to Sam and Livy, expressing that they missed them and urging them to come home—all in a nearly illegible hand [MTP].

January 12 Sunday – the Clemenses loved to entertain, something expected of many Nook Farm residents. according to Twichell’s journal, a dinner was given at Sam’s for Louis Fréchette, Poet Laureate of Canada:

“M.T. never was so funny as this time. The perfect art of a certain kind of story telling will die with him. No one beside can ever equal him, I am sure” [Andrews 92].

January 13 Monday – Sam had an unwelcome American visitor who, in effect, was a beggar. the visit, along with a Jan. 4 article from the Hartford Courant, led Sam to write a long letter to the Courant editor on the problem of beggars [MTNJ 2: 260]. (see Feb. 2 entry.)

January 14 Tuesday – the Clemenses saw a Munich production of François Adrien Boieldieu’s La Dame Blanche, a popular light opera, partly based on Sir Walter Scott’s novels The Monastery and Guy Mannering. Sam noted: “not noise, but music” [MTNJ 2: 261].  

January 17 Friday – William Roling Romoli wrote from his gallery in Florence, Italy to advise that the “two frames you ordered of me the 26th October 1878 are now quite ready to deliver to my expeditioners…to forward to Liverpool according to the directions you left me” [MTP].

January 19 Sunday – Livy and Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon. Livy wrote of her homesickness, of spending too much money in Italy, of buying furniture in Florence and of the children. Sam wrote:

January 21 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Munich to Howells. he praised Howells’ The Lady of Aroostook., and made this observation:

January 23 Thursday – Sam wrote from Munich to Joe Twichell. He had lost the address for Frank and Elisha Bliss, so asked Joe to communicate with them about the delays in his book. He didn’t want to “attempt any more prophesies as to the date of completion of the book.” Sam had found his lost notebook, and worked daily when no one in the family was sick. He calculated that he’d torn up 400 pages and had about 900 that he liked, so was half done.

January 25 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

The Mother of the King, 55 or 60, was out walking in the street, to-day, a maid of honor walking beside her, the two talking zealously, 2 vast footmen in blue liveries walking behind them—everybody, who came along, either in the street or on the sidewalk, took off hats & bowed—little boys, gentlemen, ladies, soldiers, cabmen—everybody—& the queen saw every bow & bowed in return, & still kept her end of the conversation [MTNJ 2: 263].

January 26 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to Joe Twichell after receiving his letter at breakfast (evidently there was Sunday mail delivery in Germany). Sam wrote of not being able to sleep the night before. So he dressed in the dark and then crawled around trying to find a missing sock.

January 30 Thursday – Sam wrote from Munich to Howells. He received a letter from Howells in the morning and discovered the two articles (possible chapters for his current book) he’d sent had not been lost in transit. Sam couldn’t write the “sharp satires on European life” that Howells had mentioned, for he wasn’t in a “calm, judicial good-humor” mood he felt was required.

February – Sam’s article “The Recent Great French Duel” ran in the February issue of the Atlantic Monthly [Wells 22]. It also ran in the Hartford Courant, Jan. 21, page one [Courant.com]. Sam read Arthur Sedgwick’s article “International Copyright by Judicial Decision,” and Richard Grant White’s article “London Streets” in the Feb.

February 2 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to the editor of the Hartford  Courant, enclosing a Jan. 11 article of that paper that he’d just received. The article was about tramps who had been jailed in Hartford. Sam was gratified that Hartford had “at last ceased to be the Tramp’s Heaven.” He wrote of the positive Munich experience with beggars after giving them work and denying handouts.

February 7 Friday –William Roling Romoli wrote from his gallery in Florence to note receipt of Sam’s payment of 235 lire for the gilt Florentine carved frames, and had sent them away as per directions. He did not send the glass for “Three Fates of Michelangelo” since the frames had a long way to go [MTP].

February 9 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to Frank Bliss of progress on the book, even though he was still tearing up some of it. He sent Frank an address in Paris where they might go at any time; they planned to return to Elmira next August; to Hartford in October [MTLE 4: 20].

February 13 Thursday – Elisha Bliss wrote to Sam. “Occasionally I hear from you through some friend of yours. You seem to have been skipping about like a grass-hopper in haying time.” Bliss had conferred with Perkins about Sam’s business interests. He was unclear as to which book Sam agreed would take the place of the Riley book on diamond mining, this to fulfill his agreement. The sale of Twain’s book through autumn was “quite large” [MTP].

February 17 Monday – Sam obtained a letter of credit from Drexel, Morgan & Co. for £2,000 [MTP].

February 18 Tuesday – Bissell & Co. replied to Sam’s Jan. 29 request for a letter of credit as obtained above on Feb. 17 [MTP].

February 19 Wednesday – Christian Tauchnitz wrote from Leipzig to thank Sam for his “kind lines of Jan 20” and for the two volumes of the “Routledge Edition.” He wished to republish IA [MTP].

February 21 Friday – Sam wrote to Christian Tauchnitz, letter not extant but mentioned in Tauchnitz’s Mar. 1 reply.

February 23 Sunday – Sam wrote at 1:30 pm on a snowy day from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon. After describing the snowstorm, Sam wrote that he’d finally picked all ten tunes for his $400 music box. Samuel E. Moffett had been with them for a week or more and Sam Clemens said the “manly boy” had “won the esteem, admiration & affection of the tribe.” His nephew had a:

February 24 Monday – Sam wrote from Munich a short note to Joe Twichell after receiving his letter. Sam wrote how he discovered the trick to sharpening a razor. They were leaving Thursday. Send mail to Monroe & Co., Bankers in Paris [MTLE 4: 31].

February 27 Thursday – The Clemens family left Munich by rail for Paris, France. Sam had planned to leave at 6:40 AM and travel to Strasburg (at that time in Germany) by 5:30 PM and spend the night there, continuing on to Paris on Feb. 28 [MTLE 4: 29]. Sam noted “Feb 27, at Strasburg” in his notebook [2: 292].