November 29 Thursday – Thanksgiving – In Paris Sam wrote to Henry C. Robinson, having received the wedding cards from his daughter’s wedding. Sam was sorry they wouldn’t be there and sent his congratulations. He related being “knocked down with gout in both ankles,” and though he was “up & about the house, now,” he was “not to go out for a week or two yet.”
Mrs. Clemens’s health is remarkably good & everybody remarks upon how well she looks. Susy is well again, & fatting up.
November 3 Thursday – In Florence Sam wrote to “Baby Ruth” — one year old Ruth Cleveland (1891-1904).
Dear Miss Cleveland:
November 3 Friday – In New York Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens that he’d “mapped out a long novel to-day, & will bury myself in it to-morrow….” Note: The story was “Tom Sawyer Detective,” which LLMT p.277 calls “an ingenious but uninspired yarn not published until August and September 1896 in Harper’s Magazine.” Sam also wrote about daughter Clara’s trip.
November 30 Monday – Sam’s 56th Birthday.
Livy’s Dec. 1 to George H. Warner describes a visit this day by Mr. & Mrs. du Bois-Raymond:
November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 57th Birthday. From his notebook in Florence:
Nov. 30, 1892 — 57 years old. I wish it were either 17 or 97 [NB 32 TS 47].
November 30 Thursday – Sam’s 58th Birthday. In New York he wrote to William Dean Howells, apologetic about a mix-up having accepted Howells’ and Judge Charles H. Truax’s invitations for the same day.
I am to go to a breakfast at noon next Sunday [Dec. 3], & am disgusted with myself for being so thoughtless as to consent. I am not capable of two appetites in one day.
November 30 Friday – Sam’s 59th Birthday.
Two copies of PW were deposited with the US Copyright Office [Hirst, “A Note on the Text” Afterword materials p.28, 1996 Oxford ed.]
November 4 Wednesday – This Boston Daily Globe ad of this date was typical of the hoopla made over Mark Twain’s letters from Europe.
November 4 Friday – In Florence Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall, requesting that “cloth copies of such books of mine as you publish (no others)” be sent to Vice-Consul-General A.S. Hogue in Frankfurt. “He has been having my MS typewritten in his office and refuses pay” [MTP].
November 4 Saturday – In New York, Sam gave a reading at the Uncut Leaves Society. See John D. Barry, “New York Letter,” Literary World (Boston), 24; 18 Nov. 1893, p.385. The Hartford Daily Courant, Nov. 11, 1893, p.4 “Society Notes” reported that Sam and Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923), children’s author and educator, were among the readers. Wiggin is best known for The Birds’ Christmas Carol (1887) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).
November 5 Thursday – Albert Ellery Berg for The Stage (N.Y.) “Published Every Saturday” wrote asking what Sam would charge for a 1,000 word story for their Christmas issue; if too busy could he provide “a stick or two with signature”? [MTP].
November 5 Saturday – In Florence Sam wrote to daughter Clara at Mrs. Mary B. Willard’s school in Berlin of recent events and of a visit this day by Laurence Hutton.
Uncle Larry was up, to-day, but your Aunt Larry was kept at home by illness. He was very lovely, & stayed till 4 & I walked down with him nearly to that bridge-arch which is at this end of the Via della Cenacolo. He says Mr. Booth is doubtless nearing his end — Booth himself thinks so, & speaks of it unregretfully.
November 5 Sunday – In New York Sam dined with the William Mackay Laffans [Nov. 6 to Susy]. A declined invitation from Andrew Carnegie to John Elderkin, Secretary of the Lotos Club, names this date and his inability to meet “my friend — everybody’s friend — Mark Twain” on Sunday [MTP: Nov. 3 Carnegie to Elderkin]. Note: this suggests the dinner was a Lotos Club affair.
November 6 Sunday – In Florence, Susy Clemens wrote Louise Brownell:
November 6 Monday – In New York Sam spent the afternoon talking to the actor Joe Jefferson, who dropped into the Players Club to see him. Later in the day Sam wrote to daughter Susy, asking her help in comforting her mother while he was away. With the intercession of Rogers, Sam still hoped for riches from the typesetter.
November 6 Tuesday – From the Brighton Hotel in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers about their rental house at 169 Rue de l’Unversité:
November 7 Saturday – In Berlin at 7 Körnerstrasse, Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. Sam needed two copies of his 1888 Meisterschafft. He also complimented Hall’s management of Webster & Co.
You make a most excellent showing for a three-years’ up-building of a business which was in ruins. I am most anxious to know the result of Mr. Williams’ trip. Much depends on it [MTLTP 290].
November 7 Tuesday – In New York Sam wrote on Players Club letterhead to Susan L. Warner, declining an invitation, probably to visit the Warners in Hartford. The need for him to remain in the country might “close at any unforeseen moment,” and then he would “break for ship without stopping to stuff my shawl-strap.” He wrote he would see her at the Hutton’s the next Monday (Nov. 13), however, and then they could talk [MTP].
November 7 Wednesday – In the morning, from the Brighton Hotel in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, mostly about the Paige typesetter and its competitor the Mergenthaler Linotype machine. Reports up to now from Chicago had been encouraging, but the machine would soon start to break repeatedly. Sam related how long the Mergenthaler had been around, breaking down and continuing on:
November 8 Sunday – Sam’s first letter from Europe, “The Tramp Abroad Again: I. Paradise of the Rheumatics,” or “Mark Twain at Aix-les-Bains” ran in McClure’s syndicated newspapers, including the N.Y. Sun, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Boston Globe, and others. The piece was reprinted as “The Paradise of the Rheumatics” in Europe and Elsewhere in 1923 [Camfield citing Budd’s Europe and Elsewhere; Rasmussen 336; Budd, Collected 2: 1000].
November 8 Tuesday – In Florence Sam wrote to Miss Page, thanking her for letting him “see those pleasant words.” Miss Page and those mentioned were evidently residents of Florence.
November 8 Wednesday – In New York on Webster & Co. letterhead, Sam wrote to Livy. He was glad she’d decided to stay at the Imperial Hotel in Paris as the “landlord knows us and wants us.” He was glad she was sleeping regularly and “stop worrying.” He would send autographs requested by Mrs. Murphy and he would “promptly write Mr. Fisher” for favors done for Livy.
November 9 Monday – In Berlin Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow (1855-1954), American journalist and author; one of the guests of the “grand official dinner” by William Walter Phelps on Oct. 31.
Thank you for your kindness. When I read your note at breakfast, one of the children said: “At this rate, papa, there presently won’t be any body left for you to get acquainted with but the Deity.”
November 9 Wednesday – Livy came down with an attack of dysentery [Nov. 10 to Clara Clemens].
J.W. Ryckman for Authors & Actors Carnival, N.Y.C. wrote asking Sam to be on the “Committee of prominent citizens” for the carnival, Dec. 19 to 31 [MTP].
November 9 Thursday – In New York, Sam continued to work “slowly and cautiously” on Tom Sawyer, Detective [Nov. 10 to Livy].
In the evening Sam dined with Dr. Clarence C. Rice and Mr. Huntington [Nov. 6 to Susy]. Note: Mr. Huntington is not further identified.