Life in Exile: Day By Day

May 12 Saturday – Christian B. Tauchnitz wrote to Sam about a piracy of TS,D and a lawsuit concerning the piracy; the defendant maintained that the story was 30 years old and came from an American newspaper. Could Sam confirm the first publication of the story? He hoped his letter of Apr. 18 (not extant) from Maxen reached Sam safely [MTP]. ,

May 13 Friday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus [MTP].

The books came. Many thanks.

The MS too. I still approve of it. But the attitude of mind which moved Mrs. Clemens to want it suppressed, remains. From the beginning the family have been rabid opponents of the war & I’ve been just the other way. I am indifferent about the article now. The time to print it was before Manila.

May 13 Saturday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam finished his May 12 letter to William Dean Howells. Livy and Theodor Leschetizky and an “English lady” chaperoned a group of 24 young people to Semmering, a lower-Austrian town famous for its skiing. Sam wrote it took three hours each way and he had little interest in going.

May 13 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “Chatto—afternoon carriage will call at noon” [NB 43 TS 10].

May 14 Saturday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote a long letter to Lawrence B. Evans, who had written (not extant) explaining a review. Sam thought Evans was defending England against him, though he couldn’t imagine why, giving several reasons he did not dislike the country [MTP: Varleriani]. Note: full text not available. Evans had been a professor in Berlin during the family’s 1893 stay there. He was later chairman of the history dept. at Tufts University.

May 14 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Hottest 14th of May ever recorded in New York—92. Here in London it was wintry” [NB 43 TS 10].

May 15 Monday – In Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder.

“Why hang it, my note about the shipwreck narrative [Hornet] was only a feeler. I was meaning to protect you from all possible editorial embarrassment—in case you ever have any of that” [MTP: Dawson’s Book Shop catalogs, Oct. 1934, Item 50].

May 15 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Plasmon Directors meeting 56 Duke st at 11:30” [NB 43 TS 11].

May 16 Monday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Mollie Clemens.

The “boy-picture holding the printers’ stick”—I remember it well. It was a daguerrotype. I destroyed it in Pamela’s house in St Louis in the spring of 1861 [Note: Sam did not destroy all copies of the picture, which the MTP puts a Nov. 29, 1850 date on and the photographer as G.H. Jones]

May 16 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Mrs. Hinck’s dinner / Miss A. Goodrich Freer’s address: The Laurels Burshey Heath” [NB 43 TS 11].

May 17 Monday – Frank Andrew Munsey wrote from N.Y. to Sam

My excuse for writing you is to do something, the last thing I can do, for one who admired you deeply. I refer to George Griffin, your old butler. He is dead. He died very suddenly Saturday morning, May 8th , and was buried in New York on the following Tuesday. His wife called him at the usual hour of six o’clock. He threw up his hands and in a few moments was dead. It was heart disease. It seems that he had had more or less trouble from this source for a considerable time.

May 17 Tuesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote two notes to Chatto & Windus. The first was to send their new address in Kaltenleutgeben; the second was to ask them to “send this shilling book,” which implies an enclosure. Sam thought they would leave on May 19 [MTP]. Note: they left on May 20.

May 17 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: Address: 6 Bickenhall Mansions Gloucester Place W.

———

Dine with E. Russell Roberts as “a Bencher’s guest [”] in the hall of the Middle Temple. 6 p.m. He will meet me “at the entrance to the Hall at 5.50.[”] (His address is 3 Old, Lincoln’s Inn.) “Please arrive at the Middle Temple Hall, Middle Temple Lane, & ask to be shown to the Bencher’s room[”].

Balance in Mr. Rogers’s hands, $43,000 [NB 43 TS 11].

May 18 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, “unspeakably glad” to report that “just this minute” he had “finished this book again” (FE). He’d been able to add 30,000 words by “making fun” of the Jameson raid, an account he’d feared would be boring and uninteresting. Evidently Bliss had paid the required $10,000, so Sam thought he would send the MS directly to Bliss.

May 18 Wednesday – Carl Kaiser-Herbst (1858 -1940), Viennese artist, wrote from Vienna to Sam: “Many thanks for your book, which I shall value highly. But you have sent me a finished work in return [for] an unfinished sketch—and I remain your debtor!” [MTP]. Note: the subject of the unfinished sketch was not determined.

May 18 Friday – Sam’s notebook: “Miss Chomondeley—lunch. / Meyer’s lecture Frederic William Myers.—& dine at Stanley’s. / RELIEF of Mafeking. The news came at 9.17 p.m. Before 10 all London was in the streets, gone mad with joy. By then the news was all over the American continent” [NB 43 TS 11]. Note: the siege of Mafeking was a famous British action in the second Boer War. The siege was finally lifted on May 17, 1900, when British forces commanded by Colonel B.T.

May – Harper’s Monthly May issue included a review of TSA and TS,D and Other Stories in the Uniform Edition of Mark Twain’s works by Laurence Hutton.

May – Sam’s option on the sale of Jan Szczepanik’s Raster machine in America was allowed to expire. Rogers had not been enthusiastic and now America was at war with Spain. Letters from Sam to Rogers for the period reveal Sam’s “increasingly crestfallen responses” to Rogers’ letters on the subject, none of which are extant [Dolmetsch 204]. Note: See photos of both of Szczepanik’s machines p. 202-3. Sam remained friends with the young inventor and also admired his capitalist backer, Ludwig Kleinberg.

May 19 Wednesday – The date placed on the typed form for renewal of copyright for IA sent by The American Publishing Co. and signed by Sam on May 31 in London [MTP].

May 19 Thursday – Vienna. This was the Clemens family’s planned move day to Kaltenleutgeben, some 45 minutes by train, but the move was delayed one day for an unknown reason [May 20 to Schlesinger].

May 19 Friday – Robert Buchanan wrote to Sam from London on a mourning border. He was pleased to see Sam’s handwriting after having “influenza, pneumonia and other devilries” for several months, and had a “reverent affection” for him [MTP]. Note: the hand is tiny and often illegible.

May 19 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “London wild with joy & noise all day & until two hours after midnight / Weather still horribly cold—we have had 9 months of winter. In New York last Monday, thermometer, 92” [NB 43 TS 11]. Note: See May 8 NB entry.

At 30 Wellington Court in London, Sam finished his May 17 to Samuel Moffett:

May – In London, England Sam wrote to Samuel S. McClure. “We shall spend from June 1 till Oct 1 in England. Won’t you please divert the magazine to /Care Chatto & Windus” [MTP].

May 2 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Sent to McClure May 2 Postal-check contains 5,614 words. $825 or $850.7. for 7.30 sharp. / Royal Library Fund Hotel Cecil, (Entrance east wing.) Lord Chief Justice of England. (Earl of Crewe is Lord Houghton’s son)” [NB 43 TS 9].

May 20 Thursday – Independent included an anonymous review of American Claimant and Other Stories and Sketches, (volume 21 of the Uniform Edition) p.650. In full: