Tedworth Square - Day By Day

December 19 Saturday – In London Sam added a PS to his Dec. 18 letter to Franklin G. Whitmore, that he’d forgotten to direct the disconnection of certain electric lights on the ombra and in front of Patrick McAleer’s quarters at the Farmington Ave. house.

December 22 Tuesday – In London Sam wrote to Laurence and Eleanor V. Hutton.

I am powerful glad you have spared that poor girl [Helen Keller] over the shoal place. I had every confidence that Mr. & Mrs. Rogers would be found ready for business when the watch was called. 

Sam also expressed surrender about the piece, “The Californian’s Tale”:

December 23 Wednesday — Livy wrote to Chatto & Windus, “Will you kindly place to my credit in the City Bank, Old Bond St. one hundred pounds (£100.) deducting the same from the four hundred pounds I have in your hands” [MTP].

December 24 Thursday – In London Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus:

December 25 Friday – Christmas – In London Sam wrote in his notebook:

LONDON, 11.30 Xmas morning. The Square & adjacent streets are not merely quiet, they are dead. There is not a sound. At intervals a Sunday-looking person passes along. The family have been to breakfast. We three sat & talked as usual, but the name of the day was not mentioned. It was in our minds, but we said nothing [MTB 1027].

December 28 Monday

Livy wrote to Mary Mason Fairbanks in Providence, R.I., a letter which seems like a response to one not extant from Mary.

We are going on as well as we can. We even talk to each other and smile and perhaps a stranger coming in would not see that we are a broken-hearted family, yet such we are and such I think we must always remain. This is of course the first terrible staggering blow that we have had and I realize that for me there can be but one worse.

December 30 Wednesday – A man with an indecipherable signature from Ad. Goerz & Co. of Berlin (in London) wrote to Sam noting he was sorry to have missed him “the other day” when Sam called.

Sam wrote on the envelope, “New Zealand & Austral. / unpubl.” [MTP].

December 5 Saturday – In London Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper:

You lately mentioned “Merry Tales.” If is isn’t too late, please squelch that title & call the mess by some other name — almost any other name. Webster & Co. invented that silly title [MTP].

December 9 Wednesday – In London Sam wrote per Livy to Franklin G. Whitmore.

Mr. Clemens wants me to ask you if you will inquire at Bundy’s old photograph shop and ask if they have the negative of a picture that was taken of Susy in 1891. …

      Mr. Clemens is working every day but he finds it rather up-hill work [MTP].

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.

February 10 Wednesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Robert Barr (1850-1912), who had sought a meeting with Sam for a piece about Mark Twain he would publish in the Century (Jan. 1898), Idler (Feb. 1898), and other magazines. But at this time Sam wasn’t having any interviews or contributing to any biographical features.

February 11 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, ordering two books, one “something that will explain the law of whom to leave cards on” [MTP: American Art Assoc. catalogs, Apr. 18, 1929, Item 76]. Note: English etiquette regarding calling cards was evidently somewhat foreign to the Clemens family.

February 13 Saturday – The Hartford Courant, p. 8, ran “An Appreciation of Mark Twain,” observing from William Dean Howells’ May 30, 1896 review of JA (reprinted in MMT p.150-6):

Mr. Howells, in his department in “Harper’s Weekly,” has a hearty appreciation of Mark Twain. He lauds in particular one of the humorist’s books which mortally offended the English [ CY] and which the majority of Americans, perhaps, will not agree with Howells in regarding as Mr. Clemens’s best work…

February 16 Tuesday – Dial included “Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain,” by D.L. Maulsby, p. 107-9. “A general defense of Cooper against MT’s exaggerated charges, though conceding defects in characterization and style. Some of Cooper’s descriptions are based on personal observation, and MT, unfamiliar with the locale, is presumptuous to criticize. Cooper’s works have the merits of their out-of-door atmosphere and essentially American quality” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide First Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1977 p.

February 18 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:

Feb. 18/97. Brilliant morning (very rare). Some of the people looked glad to be alive. But not many. Walked an hour in King’s Road (as usual) between Markham Square & the Chelsea Polytechnic—back & forth. Shakespeare’s people all on hand, as usual.

O Mother of Thugs!

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 19 Friday – Sam’s notebook:

Feb. 19/97. Lunched with the Henry M. Stanleys. Anecdote by Mrs. Tennant of the American who wanted his portrait painted by Sir John Millais.

Dennis McCartney’s description of Jim Townsend’s voice—“A strong bass—immensely powerful—but raucous, reedy, raspy—sort of a horse-fly voice, you know.[”]

February 2 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Horatio David Davies (1842-1912) this year London businessman and politician who became Lord Mayor of London this year. Sam declined to dine on Mar. 2 with the Lord Mayor, “obliged by reason of family affliction to decline”

[MTP]. Note: Sam was still in mourning, or at least avoiding public contact. Davies established Pimms (cocktail) as an international brand name.

February 20 Saturday – The London Athenaeum p. 244 reviewed TS,D: “The title story is a disappointment, ‘How to Tell a Story’ does not make its case, and the chapters on Paul Bourget “hardly seem worth reprinting” [Tenney 26].

February 22 Monday – J.A. O’Brien wrote from Sydney, Aus. to Sam. The short note is half illegible, but refers to a tribute which “should be framed in gold.” He wrote he was “nobody” [MTP].

February 23 Tuesday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to William Dean Howells. He thanked Howells for his “splendid phrases, so daringly uttered & so warmly” in his review of the first five volumes in Harper’s of Mark Twain’s “Uniform Edition” (HF, LM, P&P, CY, TSA, TSD).

February 26 Friday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, “nervous about the contracts” since Frank Bliss had delayed signing. Bliss’ contract specified an advance, non-refundable advance of $10,000 on Sam’s new book, (FE). Sam confessed to not being “strenuous now” and suggested they grant concessions should Bliss want them. He was pondering a good offer from a London publisher for FE, and wanted “to strike Chatto for a new and better arrangement,” but not until Bliss signed.

February 28 Sunday – Orion Clemens began a letter to Sam that he finished on Mar. 5 and 6. “$50 was gratefully received from you and Livy on the 25th. I paid Ed Brownell $5 making $100 I have paid him, and leaving $350, as I have a written agreement to pay him $5 a month….” Mollie was abed suffering from “La Grippe” and a boil in her nose [MTP].

February 5 Friday – The Hartford Courant ran a short article, “A Letter From Mark Twain,” Keokuk dispatch, p. 6 that refers to a not-extant letter from Sam to brother Orion Clemens:

February 8 Monday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

Well, I’ve had my feathers cut. I was feeling too cocky. The minute I concluded to go on & make a 2 volume of this book [FE] I broke down. I haven’t touched a pen since. I am all right again, & shall go to work again to-morrow—but not to make 2 volumes. No, I’ve dropped that idea. I mean to write a third more matter for the one volume than necessary, then weed out & leave one compact & satisfactory volume.