August 21 Wednesday – Sam departed New York, bound for England on the Scotia. Bills paid to Putnam Phalanx Market, grocers $5.43; to T.S. Daniels for oats, etc. $4.80 [MTP].
August 29 Thursday – Sam wrote from the SS Scotia, en route to Liverpool, England, to Livy. Sam missed her already [MTL 5: 151].
August 30 Friday – The Scotia reached Queenstown, Ireland at 8 AM. Sam sent a telegraph to Livy [MTL 5: 152n3].
Livy paid Flower & Hills, grocers $7.05 [MTP].
August 31 Saturday – The Scotia reached Liverpool [MTL 5: 152n3].
In Hartford, Hatch & Tyler delivered coal to the Clemens home [MTP].
September – Sometime during the month, Sir John Bennett (1814-1897) wrote Sam, enclosing Anthony Trollope’s calling card [MTP].
The first of Sam’s two visits to the Doré Gallery, London [MTL 5: 614-21].
September 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Liverpool, England to Livy.
Livy darling, I wonder if you are back home yet; & I wonder how the Muggins is [pet name for Susy]. & what she looks like. I seem only a stone’s-throw from you & cannot persuade myself that this is a foreign land & that an ocean rolls between us. I feel very near to you.
September 2 Monday – Sam probably spent the first two nights in Liverpool and on this day boarded a train for London. In 1907 he remembered sitting across from a man on the train who was reading Innocents Abroad. The man did not laugh or even smile [MTL 5: 153].
September 4 Wednesday – Bill paid to Squires Grocers for purchases made Aug. 28, 29, 30, 31, Sept. 2, 4 totaling $6.11 [MTP].
September 6 Friday – Sam gave a dinner speech at the Whitefriars Club in London at the Mitre Tavern (Published in Mark Twain Speaking, p. 72-73). Sam was treated like a conquering hero, wined and dined and escorted to many sights. He was a sensation in London.
September 7 Saturday – Sam, along with Tom Hood, make a call on John Camden Hotten’s office. Sam went under the assumed name of “Mr. Bryce” to look over the man who had been publishing unauthorized copies of Mark Twain’s work in England. Hotten recognized Sam right away, but Sam stuck to being Bryce, and looked “glum and stern” [MTL 5: 165n1]. See Sept.
September 9 Monday – Sam spent the day sightseeing with James R. Osgood, the Boston publisher who was vacationing in England. They visited the Kenilworth ruins, Warwick Castle and Stratford on Avon [MTL 5: 155]. Sam would use Warwick Castle in the opening scene of A Connecticut Yankee.
September 11 Wednesday – Sam wrote from London to Livy about the great time he was having, though he wrote, “I accomplish next to nothing…. Have not written in my journal for 4 days—don’t get time. Real pleasant people here” [MTL 5: 154-5].
September 12 Thursday – Sam had several photographs taken at the studio of W. & A.H.
September 13–November 11 Monday – Sometime between these dates Sam wrote a note to Henry Lee, mover and shaker in the building of the Brighton Aquarium. He developed a strong friendship with Lee. Sam wrote in his notebook:
September 14 Saturday – Bill paid to Putnam Phalanx Market, grocers $14.38 [MTP].
September 15 Sunday – Sam wrote from London to Livy. Sam was being pressured to lecture in London but he resisted.
“On Tuesday I mean to hang a card to my key-box, inscribed ‘Gone out of the City for a week’—& then I shall go to work & work hard. One can’t be caught in a hive of 4,000,000 people, like this” [MTL 5: 160].
Sam also wrote a short note to James R. Osgood, enclosing a photograph of himself [MTP, drop-in letters].
September 16 Monday – Sam had lunch with John Lawrence Toole (1830-1909), comic actor [MTL 5: 592n13]. Sam first met Toole in London in Sept. 1872 [MTNJ 1: 2: 296n11].
September 17 Tuesday – Sam wrote a short note from London to Arthur Locker (1828-1893), a journalist writing a short sketch of Sam’s life for the London Graphic. Sam wrote that the sketch in “Men of the Time” was accurate, as he “furnished the facts” himself [MTL 5: 161].
September 18 Wednesday – The Alta California reported the death of John Henry Riley, whose planned collaboration with Sam on the South Africa diamond book was left undone [MTL 4: 468n3].
A six-month ticket to the British Museum’s Reading Room was issued to Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, Langham Hotel [MTL 5: 176n12].
September 20 Friday – Sam wrote from London to the editor for the London Spectator, railing against the unauthorized use, attribution of the articles of others, and added material to his work by John Camden Hotten. In the absence of international copyright agreements, Hotten had published many American works without permission or payment [MTL 5: 163]. Note: see Welland 20-22.
September 21 Saturday – The London Spectator published Sam’s letter of Sept. 20 about Hotten. In the evening, Sam gave a dinner speech at the Savage Club [Published in Fatout, MT Speaking 69-71]. The Club was a private club for authors, journalists and artists, founded in 1857 by a half-dozen writers of plays who dined together every week in an old Convent Garden inn.
September 22 Sunday – Sam wrote from London to Livy that he was “making tolerably fair progress” sightseeing and collecting notes for a book.
“This is no worn out field. I can write up some of these things in a more different way than they have been written before” [MTL 5: 169].
September 23 Monday – Sam wrote from London to Thomas B. Pugh, declining his offer to lecture in Philadelphia during the next season. Pugh had arranged past lectures there for Sam [MTL 5: 178].
September 25 Wednesday – Sam attended a performance of Handel’s Messiah, featuring the well-known Hungarian soprano, Teresa Titiens and a chorus of 700 at the Royal Albert Hall.
September 28 Saturday – Sam spoke at the Sheriff’s Dinner, at the Freemasons’ Tavern, Guildhall, London in response to a toast “Success to Literature” [Schmidt]. The dinner was given by the new sheriffs of London to the city guilds and liverymen. When one of the sheriffs proposed the health of Mark Twain, he was applauded, then Sam responded to the toast. The London Times, Sept. 30, 1872, called it “an amusing speech” [LLMT 178-79].