England 1896-97 DBD

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 – Sometime during the month Sam inscribed a copy of JA to Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob (1841- 1917), English architect, engineer, and writer; active in India: Colonel Swinton Jacob

Now if I could only foregather with you again! There is no such good fortune for me; but neither I nor the rest will forget that we have had that privilege once. / Sincerely Yours / Mark Twain

London, January 1897 [MTP].

Sam’s notebook entries:

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 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 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 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 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.

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:

July 1 Thursday – Andrew Chatto and Sam “ripped out a raft of reprint matter from the Australian part of the book” (FE) feeling it improved the book and wasn’t needed [July 2 to Bliss].

The Hartford Courant, July 3, 1897: “Theatrical Gossip – Gillette Gives a Supper” p.3. The article did not report that Sam spoke at the supper. The dinner was noted in his notebook but no mention of a talk or speech given; if he did his words have been lost:

July 10 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

London, July 10. Livy, Clara , & Julie Langdon in a hansom. The horse fell, the whole front of the hansome wrecked, Clara thrown over & disappeared from Livy’s view—fell on the struggling horse’s rump, slipped down on to his hind legs in front of the wheels, scrambled out & had no severe hurts. Livy was flung on to the floor of the hansom & got two bruises on her face. Julie was not unseated, & not hurt.

July 11 Sunday – At the Hans Crescent Hotel in London, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

[Vol 3 Section 0099  1897 59]

July – Place unknown (but likely London): Sam sent aphorisms to Henry P. Child:

Universal brotherhood is the most precious thing we have, what there is of it.— Puddnhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

To succeed in the other trades, knowledge must be shown; in the law, the concealment of it will do.— Puddnhead Wilson’s New Calendar. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / (S.L. Clemens) / July, 1897 [MTP]. Note: Ancestry.com in the U.K. has one record for Henry P. Child, b. ca. 1824 in Yorkshire.

July 2 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Frank E. Bliss, enclosing a photo “mentioned in the last chapter of the book.” Sam advised that he and Andrew Chatto had removed material from FE the day before. “Chatto promised to write you, so that you can leave it out, too, if you like.” After his signature Sam wrote they would leave for the Continent on July 8 [MTP]. Note: delays pushed departure to July 13.

July 3 Saturday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam replied to Florence Hayward, London foreign correspondent, whom he had turned down on Jan. 29 for an interview. Her request is not extant.

“Perhaps I could be interviewed a little—just a little—for the St. Louis Republic, but not for an English paper, because I have declined them all, including the Pall Mall, & must not stultify myself now.”

July 4 Sunday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, advising that they were leaving England “early in the morning the 9th ,” and asking if their “inventory man” would come on July 6. He also asked for the company messenger to pick up the rest of the finished (typed) manuscript, “both the original, for you, & the typed copy” he wished to be sent to H.H. Rogers, 26 Broadway, N.Y.C [MTP].