June 20 Monday – In Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Robert Collier, Lord Monkswell (1845-1909). Sam wanted to confirm statistics he’d read in a magazine article on copyright, that there were about 4,000 books published in each country including America, England, France, and Germany. Did those books indeed represent 1,000 “professional authors” in each? He didn’t need to be exact but there were no books in the village and he was depending on what he’d read in Berlin eight years before [MTP].
June 21 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss, who evidently had requested (not extant) original photos of Mark Twain for the Uniform Edition. Sam directed him to ask Franklin G. Whitmore to get any pictures in his Hartford house, or with Fred Hall or Annie Moffett Webster’s hands in Fredonia; if Bliss wrote to her she “would do the best she can for you” [MTP].
June 24 Friday – Sam also wrote to Dr. Henry Walker. Cue: “I thank you ever so much for the impulse which” [MTP]. Note: letter UCCL 12961 is currently unavailable at MTP.
June 25 Saturday – John A. Steuart’s article, “American Fiction in England,” ran in Outlook, p. 658-9 [Tenney 29].
June 26 Sunday – In Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Samuel S. McClure.
June 28 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking how many new books had been copyrighted in England for the past year. He needed it for an article [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Brainard Warner, Jr., United States Consul in Leipsic (Leipzig).
June 29 Wednesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
June 30 Thursday – In Kaltenleutgeben Sam sent his photo-postcard to Thomas Bailey Aldrich:
“Ho. T.B.!— / Why, it has been all of 15 years since I sent you a portrait—then I sent you 56, of different vintages. I am ashamed of the long neglect. Here’s the latest. (Don’t get scared, I haven’t any more)” [MTP].
July – Noah Brooks’ article, “Early Days of the Overland,” ran in the Overland Monthly p. 3-11. Tenney: “Contains passing reference to MT, pp. 7-9, as one of the contributors to the Overland Monthly” [29]. Note: an excerpt from this article ran in the Apr. 1899 issue of the same publication [30].
July 4 Monday – Hartford leading men A.C. Dunham (Austin Cornelius Dunham) and Dr. Edwin Pond Parker visited the Clemens family for three days this week. Which days is not clear, but Sam wrote to Whitmore on July 9 that the pair was there when news came of the July 3 defeat of the Spanish fleet under Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete at the Battle of Santiago. [July 9 to Whitmore]. Note: this is also supported by the following notebook entry.
July 6 Wednesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam replied to a letter, statistics, and a check from Chatto & Windus (theirs not extant). The book statistics were exactly what he wanted. The check was “beyond expectations large—would the English government “raid it with an income tax” if they deposited it in a London bank? Sam asked Chatto to check on two plays he’d translated and sent to people in London—did they still have the plays?
July 7 Thursday – At the Villa Paulhof in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Robert Collier (Lord Monkswell; 1845-1909), British Liberal politician.
Dear Lord Monkswell: / I feel like a criminal for putting you and Lady Monkswell and Mr. Murray to such a deal of trouble. You must try to forgive me. Mr. Murray’s British & German statistics cover all the necessary ground, & I am very glad to have them. I have altered my MS to suit.
July 9 Saturday – At the Villa Paulhof Whitmore (his not extant): in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam replied to Franklin G.
“O come, what a cuss you are! What use can I make of letters 6 months old? Some of them needed immediate answers. Don’t treat me like that anymore. In the immediate cases, send the man a post-card to say I am traveling in China…”
July 10 Sunday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
July 15 Friday – Sam’s notebook:
July 15. The Duke de Frias gambled himself deep into debt & had to leave his Embassy & fly to Madrid with his young wife & young child. Count Coudenhove, & Countess Wydenbruck-Esterházy say his estates are exhausted & he is a ruined man. He is hardly 30.
————
Rudolph Lindau spent part of to-day with us—on his way back to his post at Constantinople. Looks as well as ever.
————
July 20 Wednesday – At the Villa Paulhof in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Frank Bliss that it wasn’t possible for him to come over, what with advance rent paid, the “educational arrangements” of his daughters, and all.
July 24 Sunday – Sam’s June 28 letter on Anglo-American unity to Brainard Warner, Jr., United States Consul in Leipzig ran in the N.Y. Times as “Fourth of July in Berlin.”
July 25 Monday – Jean Clemens’ photograph with The “Professor,” her six month old puppy, was taken “the day before I put my hair up” [Harnsberger 229].
July 26 Tuesday – Jean Clemens’ eighteenth birthday.
July 28 Thursday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote a short note to Siegmund Schlesinger, advising that a MS “written in an unfamiliar hand” was “at a heavy disadvantage.” Sam recommended his MS be sent to Miss V. Kendler in Vienna to be typed. Sam offered to pay the cost [MTP]. Note: Sam collaborated on two comedy plays with Schlesinger and this was likely one. Neither play was performed and both are lost.
July 29 Friday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow, this year a correspondent for the London Times during the Spanish-American War. On May 23 in Tampa, Florida, Bigelow wrote an article exposing the unpreparedness of American troops for combat which ran in Harper’s Weekly. He was denounced as unpatriotic. An excerpt of Bigelow’s article:
THE CONDITION OF THE ARMY
Who Is Responsible ?
August – From this month through October, Sam wrote “The Great Dark,” unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. It first ran in Letters from the Earth, 1962, Bernard DeVoto, ed. [Budd Collected 2: 1004].
Sam inscribed a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Lowden Sabbath Morn (1898) “To Livy / on her next birthday. / SL Clemens / Kaltenleutgeben, August, ‘98” [Gribben 663]. Note: Sam had requested the “new Stevenson book” from Chatto on July 26.
August 2 Tuesday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam inscribed a printed drawing of himself with printed signature to Dr. Edwin Pond Parker: “Dear Parker: / Motto to chew on: Saintliness is next to Selfishness* / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / *Being the offspring of it, you see” [MTP].
Sam also sent another printed postcard with signature and drawing to an unidentified person [MTP].
William Dean Howells wrote from York Harbor, Maine to Sam.
August 3 Wednesday – On a warm day in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
I must stop work a minute and congratulate you upon to-day’s telegraphic peace-prospects. I imagine you are feeling comfortable now.
Here the matter would be immensely discussed and written about—would have been, a week ago—but now it is cut down to a dozen lines, for now the whole reading-matter space in the papers is crowded with Bismarck’s life and death. It has been so for several days ….
August 4 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Aug. 4, ’98. Finished ‘My Platonic Sweetheart[’] a day or so ago” [NB 40 TS 27].