England 1899-1900 DBD

September 29 Friday – The Clemens family left Götenburg by ship to London.

September 29 Saturday – James B. Pond’s article, “Across the Continent with Mark Twain,” ran in Saturday Evening Post p.6-7. Tenney: “Chiefly on the trip to the West Coast in 1895, beginning the world tour that would lead to FE; includes excerpts from Pond’s journal, MT letters of 17 September 1897 (from Weggis, Lake Lucerne), 4 April 1899 (from Vienna), and one undated. Illustrated with ten photographs of MT.

September 3 Sunday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam replied to T. Douglas Murray (incoming not extant).

Yes, it does indeed remind one of the Rennes trial. I had a paragraph in my Introduction, particularising the twin-resemblances, & suggesting that French character has not improved in five centuries, but Mrs. Clemens knocked it out. And quite right: it was not the place for it. …

September 30 Saturday – In his Oct. 1 to Franklin G. Whitmore, Sam detailed the Clemens’ family arrival in London:

September 30 Sunday – According to Sam’s Sept. 19 to MacAlister, this was the last night the Clemens family spent at Dollis Hill.

September 4 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam that Bliss thought the cost of the 512 deluxe edition would “…be 5 cents a volume more for 500 sets than he reckoned for 1000…at these rates each 12/6 volume should bring you in 9/6” [MTP].

September 4 Tuesday – James B. Pond wrote to Sam.

I am glad to get your letter on the margin of the proposed little story for my book. I don’t agree with you. I believe that a man who can write a letter that makes one feel as though his friends should enjoy the same feeling, has no right to insist that everybody should wait for him to die,—a man who has a lease of life for one hundred years, as you have. You have got the thing down so fine that you can live without eating, and a man who does not require nourishment is an “evergreen”.

September 5 Tuesday – The New York Times, p. 1 speculated:

MARK TWAIN’S FUTURE PLANS.

Humorist Will Pass Winter at Princeton, and May Settle There.

Special to The New York Times.

September 6 Wednesday – In Sanna, Sweden Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.

September 6 Thursday – At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam replied to an invitation by Stanley W. Ball to speak at a new reading room for the local library at Kensal Rise. Sam wrote over the letterhead, “Duplicate of a letter which I lost, this morning between Dollis Hill & the station.”

September 7 Thursday – In Sanna, Sweden Livy replied for Sam to Chatto & Windus (their incoming letter not extant) about the special English issue of the Uniform Edition:

He asks me to say that he shall not be able to send out the prospectus, as he could not have the face to suggest to his friends to buy his books. It may be English but it is quite un-American to advertize oneself in this way [MTP].

September 8 Friday – An anonymous article, “An American Defender of the Faith,” ran in The Jewish Chronicle (London), p.11. Tenney: “Excerpts from ‘Concerning the Jews; editorial commentary is brief and descriptive [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Fifth Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1981 p. 164]. From Tenney’s Bibliographic Issue #4: “‘An article by Mark Twain in the March number (1899) of Harper’s Magazine attracted many letters from readers asking what in the writer’s opinion were the causes of anti-Semitism.

September 9 Saturday – The New York Times, p.BR 600, ran an article about Twain and Kipling.

MARK TWAIN ON RUDYARD KIPLING