Seeking a Cure DBD

July 23 Sunday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam replied to Richard Watson Gilder (incoming not extant). Sam praised the cure they’d been taking—“it takes all the old age out of you & sends you for the feeling like a bottle of champagne that’s just been uncorked” [MTP].

July 24 Monday – A letter by Clemens to Joseph Hatton was assigned this date by a June 25, 2003 auction sale of Bonhams & Butterfields. The text is not available; the catalog listing from the MTP shows the letter pasted to the front flyleaf of a First English Edition of PW, “an Autograph Letter Signed, July 24 [1899], to Mr. Hatton, regretting that they will be unable to meet prior to his trip to Sweden, signed (“S.L. Clemens” pasted to front flyleaf” [Sale 7443z, Lot 3171].

July 25 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook:

July 25, ’99, Sanna: Jean had a convulsion in bed at noon—fortunately the Director had just entered the roon.

It was tolerably severe. He relieved her.

At 5 she had another while sitting on the porch, Livy & I present. We were not able to carry her in—so laid her on the floor & did what we could till we sent for & got Miss Moore. By & by it passed & we got her to bed [NB 42 TS 57].

July 26 Wednesday – Jean Clemens’ nineteenth birthday.

July 29 Saturday – The New York Times, p.BR500:

Mark Twain’s Editions in London

July 30 Sunday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Phyl:

July 31 Monday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam and Livy wrote condolences to Charles M. and Mary P. Fairbanks on the death of their mother, Mary Mason Fairbanks (died Dec. 8, 1898 in Providence R.I.).

Sam explained he could not write earlier for lack of her address [MTMF 279 for Sam’s; MTP for Livy’s enclosed].

Sam also wrote again to Phyl, noted as “an autograph collector.”

Dear Phyl:

July 7 Friday – In London, England on letterhead with “Chelsea Embankment,” Sam wrote to Douglas B. Sladen that he wouldn’t see London before “autumn or the edge of winter,” and thanked the Authors Club for “the honor” which they offered him, and which he regretted he could not take advantage of.

July 8 Saturday – The family traveled on some four and a half hours by rail from Götenburg to Jönkoping; then three miles by two-horse landau to Sanna, Sweden. Sam later described Sanna:

Sanna consists of a half a dozen villas belonging to Kellgren—in these the patients live. It is on a vast blue lake, & at its back are the open fields. In the matter of brilliant skies, pure & bracing air, & intense quiet & reposefulness, of course the place is perfection.

July 9 Sunday

David Fears wrote (for the August 3, 1899 entry) of  a letter to Rogers: "I am unspeakably sorry to lose the steam yachting and the Fairhaven visit, and I wasn’t expecting to lose the whole scheme, but the Swedish project made a sudden and radical change in our plans. You see, Jean’s health has made no real and substantial progress in the past 3 years. None whatsoever. We had tried the baths, and the doctors and everything—all no good. What should we do? For one, I was willing to try anything that might turn the tide— except Christian Science.

...

September 1 Friday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow.

We are progressing handsomely, and are greatly obliged to you for putting us on the track. I suppose you will be returning to London soon. We shall reach there the last day of this month and may remain till mid-winter or longer. Then I will powerfully discourage the weekly newspaper project unless you can prove that the wear and tear of it will not destroy your health [MTP].

September 12 Tuesday – Laurence Hutton wrote from Princeton, NJ to Sam.

Dear Marcus / Here we are again. This is what the Sun says about us. If you don’t mind it, I don’t. But, I wouldn’t accept your death, Mark, as a gift.

I hope your part of the statement is true. Tell us.

I wrote you a few days ago from Paris. We expect to be settled here—at the Inn—in a couple of weeks.

And to be “At Home” in the New House by Thanksgiving time. Come. / Love …. [MTP].

September 14 Thursday – Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam to suggest they would publish two additional volumes: a book of stories, with “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” as its “splendid pièce de résistance,” and a book of articles [MTHHR 414n3].

September 15 Friday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam began a letter to Major H.F. Gordon Forbes, author, living at this time in Boulogne. (Sam added a PS on Sept. 23.) Forbes’ letter had taken over three months to reach Sam, but from postmarks where the delay was Sam could not tell. He informed Forbes he would be in Sanna until Sept. 27 and at the Queen Anne Mansions for the winter starting Sept. 30.

September 16 Saturday – Sam inscribed a card later sold in a copy of HF to an unidentified person:

“Truly Yours, Mark Twain, Sanna, Sweden, Sept. 16, 99” [MTP: Swann Galleries catalogs, 30 Sept. 1948, Item 313].

September 17 Sunday – In Sanna, Sweden, Livy wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking they send her at their “earliest convenience” a copy of JA [MTP].

September 18 Monday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Mai Rogers Coe, now in London at the Carlton Hotel.

It was a great pleasure to get your note [not extant] this morning & know that you were again within reaching distance of us. Also that you have found Harry & have got him under control. I hope you are not intending to sail before we reach London—which will be the afternoon or evening of Sept. 30. …

September – Sam’s article, “Concerning the Jews” first ran in the Sept. issue of Harper’s . It was collected in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories (1900) and How to Tell a Story, and Other Essays (1903); a postscript was added to the essay in the English edition of the former as well as later American editions beginning in 1902. See Sept. 15 to Simon Wolf, with notes.

September 19 Tuesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, asking them to “send no more postal matter after Sept. 24th / Nor the ‘Chronicle’—it can go to the Queen Anne Mansions” [MTP]. Note: postcard postmarked this date, possibly written earlier.

September 21 Thursday – The New York Times, p.5 reported that Mark Twain had canceled arrangements to stay in Princeton, N.J., and would spend the winter in London.

September 22 Friday – H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, the letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Oct. 4 reply.

September 23 Saturday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam added a PS to his Sept. 15 to H.F. Gordon Forbes: “P.S.—8 days later—Sept. 23.

I learn this morning from London, in answer to my inquiries, that you are still at Boulogne—so I need not have waited” [MTP].

September 24 Sunday– In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, asking him to reach Madame Dreyfus, suggesting she see Kellgren to “bring back health & strength to her husband.” Sam claimed to have spent 20 minutes each morning for the past ten weeks in Dr. Jonas Henrick Kellgren’s “work-room watching him perform upon his patients,” and that he made some 7,000 words of notes. He told of Nathaniel Rothshchild, the daughter of Mr.

September 26 Tuesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, advising him to learn his lectures by heart, and describing “a trick” he learned in Vienna, by accident—to carry a book and use it to talk with, gesture with and making it seem he was not reading it. Sam also had read the recent installment of Howells’ Their Silver Wedding Journey in Harper’s, which he thought “delicious— every word of it. You haven’t lost any of your splendid art” [MTHL 2: 705-6].