Clemens Family Relocates to Europe: Day By Day

November 13 Tuesday – At the Brighton Hotel in Paris, the doctor came to examine Sam the day after his gout attack, which would have been this day:

November 14 Saturday – George Peter Alexander Healy, at the National Soldiers’ Home in Va. sent Sam a MS, his “first attempt” asking, “Is it good for anything?” [MTP].

November 14 Tuesday – In New York at the Players Club, Sam wrote to Livy.

The Booth Memorial Service a the Madison Square Garden yesterday was impressive & beautiful. All the distinction of New York was massed in that place. I seemed to be personally acquainted with half of the people there. There is no church congregation in Hartford where I would recognize any where near such a huge proportion of the faces. It was like being in a family gathering.

November 14 Wednesday – At the Brighton Hotel in Paris, Sam’s cough improved [Nov. 15 to Rogers].

November 15 Sunday – Berlin’s National-Zeitung, Sonntags-Beilage, No. 46 ran an interview of Sam by Max Horwitz, titled “Mark Twain in Berlin.” Budd reports,

“SLC praises Berlin and, unlike hasty visitors to the United States, doubts he will write book about Germany; is relieved to find he is not subject to German taxes and grumbles about having his royalties taxed in England” [“Interviews” 6].

November 15 Wednesday – In New York, Sam inscribed a copy of Roughing It to Francis Wilson: To / Francis Wilson / with kind regards of / Mark Twain. / New York, / Nov. 15, ’93 [MTP: G.A. Baker catalog Nov. 6-7, 1940 No. 54].

November 15 Thursday – In the morning at the Brighton Hotel in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers of being laid up since Nov. 12 with the gout and of the doctor’s treatments on Nov. 13. He expected to go to the new house this day.

November 16 Monday – Ada F. Thayer wrote from Fulton, N.Y. asking if she might include a cutting from a “laughable sketch” in TA, “where Harris meets the American girl at the Hotel in Lucerne” in her collection of “new recitations” she was compiling [MTP].

November 16 Wednesday – In Florence Sam wrote to daughter Clara at Mrs. Mary B. Willard’s school in Berlin. In the top margin he wrote that Ned Bunce wanted her address. After expressing concern for Clara reporting she’d had a case of the “grippe” (flu; influenza) he wrote he was relieved she was better. Livy was not; she was “very weak & all wasted away.”

November 16 Thursday – In New York, Sam and William Dean Howells saw Henry Irving in the title role in Tennyson’s Becket at Abbey’s Theatre [MTHL 2: 654n4].

November 16 Friday – At the Brighton Hotel in Paris, Sam wrote three paragraphs to Franklin G. Whitmore, the first about attending to the rugs in the Hartford house; the second to advise when he needed money for the household expenses there to apply to Rogers’ legal firm of Stern & Rushmore because the money from the American Publishing Co. (PW ) went to them; the third was a brief progress report on the rental house he would go to in one hour.

November 17 Tuesday – George H. Warner wrote to Sam that he’d met a labor organizer named Hotchkiss who commented on CY, saying, “The labor folks have got onto it and they want a cheap edition. Can’t Clemens be induced to print one they could afford to buy” [MTLTP 295n1]. See Dec. 1 to Hall.

November 17 Friday – In New York, Sam sent a brief letter of introduction for William Gillette to William Dean Howells.

…his errand is not business, but only to shake hands & say howdy [MTHL 2: 654-5].

Note: In 1915 Howells would recommend Gillette for membership in the American Academy of Arts and letters as “a consummate artist” [655n1].

Henry Irving gave an invitation to Sam behind stage at Abbey’s Theatre:

November 17 Saturday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam stayed in bed to recover from his bronchitis and gout.

November 18 Wednesday – Joe Twichell wrote that he was mailing today “a copy of the poor little baby book of which I have been guilty,” (probably his history of John Winthrop). He suggested if Sam’s daughters ever misbehaved that a good punishment would be to force them to read his book [MTP].

November 18 Saturday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy, enclosing the invitation of Nov. 17 from Henry Irving.

I am desperately disappointed because my photograph is not ready for your birthday. I was going to send it to Susy & have her put it with the other tokens of love & remembrance Nov. 27th. But I see I can’t manage it now. I went there & sat 7 times & got one or two very good negatives. Sarony should have had the pictures here two days ago but he has failed me.

November – An unsigned article ran in Bookman (London) titled, “To an Old Humorist” with passing references to Mark Twain, who is grouped with Rabelais, Swift, Sterne, Dickens, and Holmes. “If Mark Twain had to be judged by his Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur, he would have but an indifferent reputation with at least half the English-speaking race” [Tenney 19].

November – Tom Sawyer Abroad appeared as a serial in the November issue of St. Nicholas Magazine. “The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance” ran in the Cosmopolitan. This sketch was later collected in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900), and My Debut as a Literary Person, Etc. (1903) [Budd, Collected 2: 1001].

November 19 Thursday – In Berlin Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall about the proposed 10¢ pamphlet containing the six Europe letters. As far as using the old “Jumping Frog” story, Sam anticipated a possible conflict with American Publishing Co., advising Hall to “use something else” if he also felt a dispute was probable.

But when I come home I’ll use the Jumping Frog & take care of the dispute, for it is quite necessary that I have a controversy with those people some day [MTLTP 292].

November 19 Sunday – Sam and Charles Dudley Warner dined with Henry Irving. Fatout reports this as the Henry Irving-Ellen Terry Dinner, and that possibly Sam gave a speech. If so, the content is unknown [MT Speaking 660]. Sam also mentioned the dinner in his Nov. 20 to Twichell, but did not mention Terry or giving a talk [MTP]. Sam’s notebook gives: “Sunday 19, Hutton’s (Henry Irving & Miss Ellen Terry) [NB 33 TS 38].

November 2 Monday – The Bohemian Club of S.F. sent a printed circular announcing the upcoming issue of the Annals of Bohemia, by the Club historiographer, Mr. Daniel O’Connell. Price $2 [MTP].

November 2 Wednesday – In Florence Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. The bulk of Sam’s letter expresses dissatisfaction with American Publishing Co. He wished he could get the contracts with them annulled, since he felt a “deliberate violation of the most important feature” of their contracts should allow him to do so. They did not allow Webster & Co. to make a sufficient profit on the books they published, giving only “not ten cents on any book” of his.

November 2 Thursday – In New York Sam wrote to daughter Clara. He wanted her to be sure to call “immediately” on the widow Frau Alice von Versen in Berlin; she would need to inquire as the house they were living in had been supplied by the German government. He remarked Clara had been gone 55 hours and was well on her way across the Atlantic. He admonished her to find an escort for the long trip from Berlin to Paris, one who would be satisfactory to Livy, who was worried about the matter.

November 2 Friday – From the Brighton Hotel in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers. He described the move from Rouen (see Oct. 31) and gave the rest of the letter to a discussion of the typesetter; he’d received the Chicago report on the machine’s progress upon arriving in Paris. The report evidently showed some shortcomings, for Sam wrote:

November 20 Friday – In Berlin Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall (note — Hall’s letter took two weeks to reach Sam, who noted the fact on his letter). Sam approved Hall’s suggestions about a proposed book of Europe travel and observations.

Yours of Nov. 7 just rec’d.

Dear Mr. Hall:

I think I would call the book — / Recent European Glimpses / — by Mark Twain [MTP].