April 27 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to “Friar” Arthur Spurgeon (1861-1938), declining an invitation to the Whitefriars Club, after changing his mind to make only “several engagements.” He would keep only those and not add any.
I am to dine with Mr. Moberly Bell May 4th, but even if I were free I should avoid adding a public engagement.
You will have a good time. Max O’Rell made a delightful speech that other time, & he will do it again [MTP].
April 28 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam finished his Apr. 26 to H.H. Rogers.
The issue of including South Africa in FE had been settled in the affirmative—by Livy:
“Mrs. Clemens urged that you & Bliss were right. She said—but that ain’t any matter. The only thing is, that I have started in on South Africa, & have done two chapters on it & am moving along” [MTHHR 275-6]. Note: See May 3 to Frank Bliss.
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 1 Saturday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Frank Fuller (likely still in N.Y.C.):
I was very glad to get your letter [not extant], & hear your cheery voice again; but I’m going to wait a while before I wrote you, because there’s fully 2 weeks’ writing to do on this book yet, possibly 3—& I am rushing.
But when I get the decks cleared, then I’ll write you a letter which I’ve had in my mind a year & more.
May 3 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam replied to Frank Bliss’s long-awaited letter, not-extant
Now you’re speaking up! Your letter had a virile ring to it. I had concluded weeks ago that your interest in the book was a little pale.
Yes, come over here. I have thought of it fifty times.
May 4 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to
Richard Edgcumbe : “I shall be very glad indeed to come. With many thanks I am / Sincerely Yours / SL Clemens” [Sotheby’s June 19, 2003 catalog, p.72 Lot 85].
May 6 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to James Ross Clemens, sorry that he was “having this ill turn,” and offering to do anything to help. Livy had offered to help [MTP]. Note. James’ illness was the source of the rumor that Sam was desperately ill, or dying, or even dead. Paine writes:
May 7 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus: “Please send me Garrett’s book, reviewed this morning: ‘Story of an African Crisis’—Constable & Co” [MTP]. Note: Edmund Garrett. Sam annotated the book throughout in both pencil and ink, and mentioned Garrett’s book in ch. 65 of FE, “characterizing Garrett as ‘a brilliant writer partial to [Cecil] Rhodes’.” Sam praised Garrett’s account of the Jameson raid as “the best one I have met with” [Gribben 253]
May 8 Saturday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam replied to another (not- extant) invitation to dine from John Y. MacAlister. Yes, he would come “pretty soon” and would also like to “get out the manilas and repeat our smokes,” but Livy was ailing and he needed to spend his evenings with her for now. Also, the addition to the book for S. Africa “comes hard” after he’d thought he was done but expected to finish up in about ten days [MTP].
May 9 Sunday – Pushed even farther back in the NY Times on p. 23 was an Assoc. Press dispatch from London Dated May 8, “Mark Twain in Good Health.” The article announced Sam was still working hard on his new book and that his publishers had asked for an additional 30,000 words on Africa. An expanded article ran on June 2, p.7, “Mark Twain’s Health Good.”
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 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 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 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:
May 22 Saturday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam replied to H.S.W. Edwardes (whose request is not extant). Sam was a hermit and did not go out, but thanked Edwardes “all the same” [MTP].
Note: Sam did go out, but chose his times, places, and persons selectively.
May 23 Sunday – Sam’s notebook: “May 23, 1897. Wrote first chapter of above story to-day”
Paine writes of the beginning of “Which Was The Dream?” which was not published in Sam’s lifetime:
May 24 Monday – The ledger books of Chatto & Windus show that 750 additional copies of Tom Sawyer, Detective were printed (totaling 5,750 to date) [Welland 238]. ,
Sam’s notebook:
May 26 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to advise Katharine I. Harrison that after June 15 letters should be posted in care of Chatto & Windus [MTP: CF Libbie & Co. catalogs, Mar. 3, 1915, Item 367].
Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister: “I have finished the book at last—and finished it for good this time. Now I am ready for dissipation with a good conscience. What night will you come down & smoke?” [MTP; MTB 1041].
May 27 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam marked a letter to Frank Fuller “PRIVATE” after getting wind of a scheme by friends back home to host a “special benefit” lecture “at big prices for tickets and an auction of a dozen first-choice seats at Jenny Lind prices” as a way of putting him over the top in his efforts to pay his debts. Fuller was the first man he thought of to pull this off, a man who could handle “the engineering of so delicate and so large an undertaking.”
May 30 Sunday – Frank Marshall White, London correspondent of the NY Evening Journal had a “chat” with Sam to inform him of the report in New York that Mark Twain was dying of poverty in London [NY Journal article datelined June 1 and reported by the Hartford Courant, June 3, p. 12, “Mark Twain All Right”]. Note: see June 2.
May 31 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Ainsworth R. Spofford, enclosing his signed application form on American Publishing Co.’ s letterhead for renewing copyright on IA, The form carries a July 12 date [MTP].
Sam also signed the renewal copyright for IA form and returned it to Frank Bliss [MTP].
Sam also wrote a squib to the London correspondent for the N.Y. Journal, Frank Marshall White:
June – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus—a preliminary “page by itself” draft for inclusion in the front of FE, or, as it would be called in England, More Tramps Abroad (due to the past success there of A Tramp Abroad). Only the dedication, slightly changed, to Harry Rogers made it into the book. ,
EXPLANATORY NOTE
June 1 Tuesday – The Hartford Courant carried an article on June 3, datelined London June 1, “Mark Twain All Right – A Chat With Him Day Before Yesterday” from the N.Y. Journal by Frank Marshall White:
Mark Twain was undecided whether to be more amused or annoyed when a “Journal” representative informed him to-day of the report in New York that he was dying of poverty in London. …
June 2 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote two notes to James R. Clemens, asking the good doctor cousin to meet him at the box office of the Adelphi Theatre on the Strand the next evening, June 3 at eight or five after to see William H. Gillette’s play, Secret Service. If James couldn’t go, would he name another day?
June 3 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to James R. Clemens confirming he’d be waiting that night (Sam did not mention family) at the Adelphi Theatre and also asked him to Sunday dinner. It was the first time noted that the Clemens family hosted since moving into Tedworth Square: