1896- 7 Winter – Several write-ups of an anecdote exist for James Abbott McNeil Whistler being taken in by Mark Twain over a painting. This by Wientraub places it during this winter and does not see it as their first meeting, as some do:

January 2 Saturday – The London Academy, p. 18 reviewed TS,D: “On the whole, this is a bright, readable book, with nothing of the detestable tendency to parody the wrong things which we have occasionally regretted in the author” [Tenney 26].

January 3 Sunday – Sam’s notebook from Jan. 7 about this day:

London — / Last Sunday [Jan.3] I struck upon a new “solution” of a haunting mystery. Great many years ago (20?) I published in the Atlantic “The Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.”

That was an attempt to account for our seeming duality —the presence in us of another person; not a slave of ours, but free & independent, & with a character distinctly its own.

January 4 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam cabled to H.H. Rogers: “CONTRACTS SIGNED.” Not extant but quoted in his letter this day to Rogers.

January 5 Tuesday – Colonel Andrew S. Burt wrote to Sam (four half pages, typed) from Ft. Missoula, Mont., having rec’d his two-page letter and inscribed copy of LM . Burt sent family sentiments, told of opening the wrapped book at Christmas and asked when Sam might return to Ft. Missoula.

January 6 Wednesday – From Gribben p.140 : “On 6 and 7 January 1897 Mark Twain amused himself with working notes ‘for a farce or sketch’ (or perhaps ‘an Operetta’) which would employ ‘pilgrims to Canterbury’ accompanied by Chaucer himself’” [NB 39 TS 43; NB 40 TS 1].

January 7 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to his sister, Pamela Moffett, who had complained to Orion that Sam answered his letters but not hers. Sam explained he was in the habit of writing Orion “about 8 times a year,” paying Orion “one for six” of his letters. Then he confessed the real reason for not writing to her:

January 11 Monday – Sam’s notebook:

January 12 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Cook gone—another come; 4 in 3½ months. More than we had in 18 yrs at home” [NB 41 TS 4].

January 15 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam wrote a general letter about several matters to H.H. Rogers: He liked the contracts they’d signed. He supposed Harry Rogers (H.H. Rogers, Jr.) had turned sixteen in October (actually his birthday was Dec. 28) and that he’d tried to vote in November.

January 16 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “New cook has come—Jan. 16. First snow. About ½ inch” [NB 41 TS 4].

January 17-21 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:

Where the English beat us, is in fun in the Church (“elections” of Bishops & clerical rows in the graveyard) cant; charity in work & cash; unconscious arrogance; (my neighbor) adultery in high places; incompetent cooks.

January 18 Monday – J. Woulfe Flanagan, London Times reporter, wrote on mourning stationery to complain about Clara’s piano playing. The piano was on the common wall between the flats in Clara’s upstairs bedroom. “It is my misfortune never to get to bed before 4 a.m. as I work on a morning paper….Will you think me very rude & unneighborly if I ask you as a great favour not to play the piano in the mornings?” [MTP].

January 19 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Frank E. Bliss about application for renewal of copyright on IA, which was expiring. He referred to Bliss’ Nov. 16, 1896 letter that the copyright would “not be legally ripe before Jan. 29, 1897.” Since that date was not far off, would Bliss please send the enclosed application to Ainsworth R. Spofford, Library of Congress, together with the appropriate fee?

January 20 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam wrote a short note to neighbor J. Woulfe Flanagan that he did not send: “You compliment me upon not having imitated your manners. I thank you very much” [MTP].

January 22 Friday – Sam’s notebook:

January 23 Saturday– Sam’s notebook: 23d. He [Wilson] rushed out of shop in the Strand, without noticing whither he was going—struck a hand-cart, fell & hit the curbstone with back of his head. Surgeon says if he lives he will be mentally damaged [NB 41 TS 5].

January 24 Sunday – Caroline B. Le Row wrote offering to return to Clemens his “financial gift” of $250 long ago, which the Century had paid him, which he then gave to her, for her “little book,” English As She Is Taught. Le Row was now a teacher of reading at a Girls’ high school in Brooklyn and could send it in a month or so if he needed it [MTP]. Note: Printed in MFMT 137-8

January 25 Monday – A London Daily News employee in Vienna wrote to Sam, thanking him for his “answer which I should consider perfectly justified if I thought you were going to lecture on improvisation.” He mentioned story titles that Sam was going to read (that page lost). He also answered a concern of Sam’s: “Alas there is nobody in all Vienna who can take an English lecture down in shorthand” [MTP].

January 26 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam wrote to Patrick A. Collins, Consul General, also in London: “If there is a U.S. Consul at Venice, it will be a favor to me if you will kindly have his name & address put upon the enclosed card & posted” [MTP].

January 29 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London Sam wrote to Patrick A. Collins, “ever so much obliged” for Collin’s evident supplying of a US Consul’s name in Venice. Sam explained the reason he had not called on Collins was that in their bereavement they had hidden away “until such time as we may be enabled to confront life again & resume relations with our species” [MTP].

January 30 Saturday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Ainsworth R. Spofford at the Library of Congress, Wash. D.C., making formal application for copyright renewal of IA, [MTP]. Note: He may have done this not certain that Bliss would perform in time.

January 31 Sunday – Fatout lists a dinner for Poultney Bigelow, where Sam told a story or gave a talk. Among guests were Lord Young, Chief of the Judiciary of Scotland; Sir William Vernon Harcourt, leader of the Opposition, House of Commons; and Herbert Gladstone, son of the former prime minister [MT Speaking 665]. Note: Fatout does not mention Armitage and gives no source, but it’s likely the following notebook entry.

February – The London Bookman p. 151-2 reviewed TS,D: “We have liked Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn better in other circumstances,” but there are “much feebler things” in the book: “In ‘Adam’s Diary’ Mark Twain is at his feeblest and vulgarest; he fell no lower in ‘A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur’” [Tenney 26].

February 1 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus and signed himself “a hard working man.” He had 21 or 22 books of his he wished shipped to India and other places, with names on the fly-leaf and a slip inside each with names and addresses. Would they “send a cuss in a cab to carry them to you for packing & mailing?” [MTP].

Sam “finished” FE (for the first time) on this day [Feb. 2 to Rogers]. He would “finish” it at least twice more.