October 20 Sunday – Alice Minnie Herts wrote for the Children’s Theatre to Miss Lyon, correcting a prior invitation [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Oct. 23”
October 21 Monday – A run on the Knickerbocker Trust Co. bank in N.Y.C. caused panic elsewhere, and the bank was forced to close its doors the next day. Sam had deposits of about $51,000 at the bank. J.P. Morgan would gain the help of fellow bankers, including John D. Rockefeller, to raise funds and import $100,000,000 in gold from Europe to restore confidence. See Oct. 22. H.H. Rogers and Katharine Harrison had originally recommended the Knickerbocker Trust Co. to Sam. A business slowdown from the resulting spreading panic lasted for months.
October 22 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: Oh, it’s too dreadful. Every penny the King has, fifty one thousand dollars, is in the Knickerbocker Trust Co. and it has suspended payment. It has gone crashing into a terrible state. I was in town and read of the panic in the Times, and Ashcroft and I went to the bank, at 30th st and Fifth Avenue to see crowds of people there, with bank books in their quivering hands. And then I came back to Tuxedo to find the King in bed and so cheerful and beautiful and brave, and trying not to show his anxiety.
October 23 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to “Miss Anonyma.”
Dear Miss Anonyma: / This is to express my joy in the fact that you are able to go fishing, & to thank you very heartily for letting me share in the result. It is my purpose to call & say these things orally this afternoon, & so I am merely uttering them with the pen as a precaution, since it often happens—as you will have noticed—that the things we propose to do get interfered with & do not occur.
October 24 Thursday – Sam returned to 21 Fifth Ave. for the winter. Clara Clemens had been “domiciled in the house several days”; Isabel Lyon and servants would follow on Oct. 26 [Oct. 28 to Nunnally].
October 25 Friday – The annual Cotillion Ball of the Tuxedo Club was held and the New York Times reported the event, Oct. 26, p.11. If Sam attended, as his letter of Oct. 23 to “Miss Anonyma” shows, he would have had to have returned from 21 Fifth Ave. for the event, since he moved back on Oct. 24. No mention of him was made in the Times article, though H.H. Rogers, Jr. (Harry) and wife Mary were listed, so he likely canceled plans to attend, returning to his N.Y.C. house. Possibly the events at the Knickerbocker Trust Co. led to the changed plans.
October 26 Saturday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: I don’t know how I got through all of it—doing 9 days’ work in 3 days, but it is over and I am in New York. Arrived at 3 to find the King and AB at billiards. I brought in the pretty little cat and the King was glad to see it. Myron Whitney came in to rehearse his concert program with Clara for the 11th. His voice is superb. They had to have the King come in to hear it, but the King was much annoyed, and hated to leave his billiards, even tho’ he had to concede that Whitney’s voice was wonderful.
October 27 Sunday – The Sunday Magazine of the New York Tribune featured “Mark Twain’s Autobiography” and a full page portrait of him. An identical cover was published in the Sunday Magazine of the St. Louis Republic, as well as many other newspapers. See insert.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “I sat with the King a long time this morning. He said he couldn’t do any phrasing in answer to a note from someone, because he and Paine had played billiards until nearly 3 o’clock. / Knickerbocker coming along—perhaps” [MTP TS 119].
October 28 Monday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.
October 29 Tuesday – John C. Gardner wrote from Toronto. Gardner denied being a “crank” yet sent 10 pages typed double-spaced relating his life long exposure to Twain’s books and the fall from his estimation caused by the frustration of reading Sam’s Autobiography in serial form in a magazine. While trying to be humorous, Gardner became tedious (this is a rare editorial comment dedicated to Tom Tenney) [MTP].
October 30 Wednesday – Roi Cooper Megrue for Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam: “Can we arrange for a dramatization of your story [‘]Our Italian Guide[‘] with Mr Timmory in Paris” [MTP].
October 31 Thursday – Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Miss Lyon about dramatizing progress [MTP].
November – In N.Y. Sam had invitations printed for the Nov. 19 Children’s Educational Theatre performance of P&P.
Mr. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) invites you to inspect the work of The Children’s Educational Theatre Educational Alliance, 197 East Broadway on Tuesday evening, November 19th at 8,15
When a special complimentary performance will be given of “Prince and Pauper” dramatized from his book for the Children’s Educational Theatre
R. S. V. P. 21 Fifth Avenue
November 1 Friday – Overland Monthly ran a sketch of Mark Twain by Alice Resor, accompanied by excerpts of IA reprinted from the magazine’s Oct. 1868 issue [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 192].
November 2 Saturday — Emma N. Warfield (Mrs. Edwin Warfield) wrote to Miss Lyon: “Dr Clemens and you have interested me delightfully and I am so pleased that such a busy man should stop even for a moment to think of me” [MTP].
November 3 Sunday – Linnie M. Bourne wrote from Washington D.C. to relate a “slip of the tongue” she’d made as a girl going with her grandfather to see Twain and Cable read in Washngton. When asked where they were going in such a hurry, she replied, “We’re going to hear Cain and Able read” [MTP].
November 4 Monday – Thomas B. Doolittle wrote from Minneapolis, Minn. to Sam. “I wish that you would quit looking like me. It annoys me very much and besides, it appears by the enclosed anonymous verse that I am handsomer. / Yours truly” [MTP]. Note: clipping enclosed with Doolittle’s picture, “Inventor of Telephone Exchange Apparatus and Telephone Wire.” Also the picture of Twain on the Sunday Magazine, Record-Herald, Chicago.
November 6 Wednesday – William Dean Howells saw Sam often during the fall and early winter of 1907-08. “I am going down to see old Clemens this morning,” Howells wrote his wife on Nov. 6 [MTHL 2: 827].
Charles J. Langdon wrote enclosing a draft for $137.50 to Sam for payment of bonds from Duvall Co. Fla.
November 8 Friday – Clinton B. Fisk wrote from NYC to ask Sam when he might “confer… regarding a matter of theatrical literary return that may prove mutually to our profit” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Nov. 11, ‘07”
November 7 Thursday – James C. Barr wrote on Cunard Steamship Co. notepaper, while in port in NYC. Barr enclosed a letter to Clemens from John Japp, Lord Mayor of Liverpool, and though there’s been some delay in Japp getting the book Sam sent, Barr confirmed that Japp now had the book,[MTP].
Kate Douglas Riggs for the Literary Committee, Colony Club, NYC wrote to Sam not to “let anything happen to prevent your being the guest of honor at the Colony Club next Tuesday the 12th as you have agreed” [MTP].
November 9 Saturday – Captain James C. Barr sent a telegram from the SS Lucania to Sam: “Big fish landed / thanks it was. / Captain Barr” [MTP].
John Bigelow wrote from Highland Falls-on-Hudson to advise that though he was at an old age, he would be at the Educational Theatre with one of his daughters on the 19th, and please send the tickets to an address he furnished in Gramercy Park [MTP].
November 10 Sunday – Poultney Bigelow sent a postcard to Miss Lyon: “…accepts with delight for Tuesday Nov. 19th” [MTP].
John A. Joyce wrote from Washington, D.C.. Joyce broke down when reading in the NAR of Susy Clemens’ last words, because it brought the memory of his own daughter’s death 20 years before [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Nov. 13, ‘07”
J. Van Vechten Olcott wrote from NYC to thank Sam for letting him know what the Tribune supplement published this day [MTP].
November 11 Monday – Fatout lists a dinner speech for Sam at the Homeopathic Society, N.Y.C. but gives no particulars and none were found [MT Speaking 678].
Howard Kyle wrote on Players notepaper to ask Sam if he might bring a photo taken of Clemens in the Players Booth at the Actors Fund Fair last May, for his signature [MTP].
An unidentified person wrote to Sam (only the env. Survives; Sam wrote on it, “Invite the Laffans”) [MTP].
November 12 Tuesday – The New York Times, Nov. 13, p.9, “Reception to Mark Twain,”reported:
Reception to Mark Twain.
———
Author the Guest of Honor at the Colony Club.
The officers and members of the Colony Club gave a reception yesterday afternoon [Nov. 12] in honor of Mark Twain.
Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, the President of the club; Mrs. Richard Irving, and other club officers received.
November 14 Thursday – Sam took a walk up Fifth Ave. to 42nd Street. At 4 p.m. at the Church of the Ascension, Sam attended the wedding of Miss Marjorie Rice, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Clarence C. Rice, to Gordon Means of Boston [NY Times, Nov. 13, 1907, p. 9; Nov. 15 to Jean: Nov. 21 to Mary Rogers].
In the evening he played billiards till midnight [Nov. 15 to Jean].