September 15 Thursday – The Clemens family left Frankfurt, headed for Lucerne, Switzerland, a trip of some 207 miles [NB 32 TS 24; Sept. 17 to Whitmore]. Sam related that Livy’s condition forced them to stop for the night in Basel:
September 16 Friday – Sam’s notebook shows the record of travel:
Left Frankfurt Sep. 15. / Stayed over-night at Basel. / Left Basel at 2.10 p.m. Sept. 16, reached Lurcerne 5.15 [NB 32 TS 24].
Italy and the Villa Viviani: DBD
September 25 Sunday – The Clemenses moved into the Villa Viviani, five miles outside of Florence, Italy [Sept. 24 to Phelps].
Susy began a letter “on our first Sunday in Florence” to Louise Brownell, and finished it on Sept. 26 (though the letter was not postmarked until Oct. 13.) She related the delay the family experienced in Frankfurt (see Sept. 12 entry), and continued:
September 26 Monday – Susy Clemens finished her Sept. 25 letter to Louise Brownell (see Sept. 25).
In his notebook Sam made a memorandum to “order Galignani & l’Italy” (Galignani’s Messenger, a daily English-language publication from Paris) [Gribben 250; NB 32, TS 26].
This was in a long list of items to get and do, including:
September 27 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook in Florence:
Sept. 27. Hired landau & 2 horses & coachman of Picci at 480 francs (lire) a month for 8 months, which covers everything (wages, board, feed, &c), except the coachman’s bed & pourboire [gratuity]. Either party can annul the agreement by giving 15 days’ notice to the other [NB 32 TS 27].
September 28 Wednesday – At the Villa Viviani in Florence, Sam wrote to Laurence Hutton at the Hotel Royal Danichi in Venice. Sam added the note to the envelope, “To be kept till the cuss comes.” He recommended a pension (similar to today’s hostel) to Hutton, should he not wish a hotel.
Eight francs a day per person, baths & lights & that sort of thing extra. Most highly recommended.
September 29 Thursday – In Florence Sam wrote a short notes to Frederick J. Hall. The first note:
Yours of the 19th containing M 2.086.5 received. Good — I needed it. Setting up housekeeping calls for rafts of inexpensive odds & ends that bulk-up a considerable expense before one gets through.
You sent out an enormous cargo of volumes in August [MTP].
September 30 Friday – Florence, Italy: the date of an engagement Sam accepted on Sept. 25 to Mr. Loring’s. At the Villa Viviani, Sam wrote a long letter to Sue Crane. Livy was unable to write, Sam disclosed.
October – In Florence at the Villa Viviani, Sam noted Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1871) [Gribben 693; NB 32, TS 33].
Scott Rankin’s article, “People I Have Never Met: Mark Twain,” ran in the London Idler. Included was a cartoon of Sam in sailor’s garb on the bridge of a ship with a life-ring reading “Quaker City” [Tenney 20].
October 1 Saturday – B.A. Atkinson & Co., Boston, wrote to Sam offering to sell “the most novel and magnificent Railroad Palace Car which has ever been placed before the public” [MTP].
October 2 Sunday – Sam’s notebook in Florence: “Oct. 2, agreed to give the coachman his meals — sum reduced to L450 per m.” [NB 32 TS 27].
October 5 Wednesday – In Florence Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. He’d received Hall’s August statement and was pleased with the “good showing” of “cheap P & P & Huck Finn & Claimant.” He wanted to know how many cheap HF’s had been sold to date, and warned Hall to watch out for American Publishing Co., should they issue their own cheap copies of his book. He’d write Whitmore also to be on the lookout. He would stop any such issue. The move had interrupted Sam’s progress on PW.
October 6 Thursday – Clara Clemens was off to Berlin, where she would study piano. In Florence, at 10 p.m., Sam wrote to her upon returning to the Villa Viviani;
Dear, dear Ben —
October 7 Friday – According to Susy’s letter to Louise Brownell, written about one week after the move to the Villa Viviani, or ca. Oct. 1 (but postmarked Oct. 14), this was the day Grace King and sister Nan King arrived.
Clara expects to go to Berlin on Thursday of next week and Grace King and her sister come on Friday to spend a month with us. We are looking forward to this visit [Cotton 101171].
October 8 Saturday – The Illustrated News of the World (New York issue) ran a first segment of “The German Chicago.” Follow up segments ran on Oct. 15 and Nov. 5 1892 [Willson list, Univ. of Texas at Austin].
October 11 Tuesday – In Florence, Sam mailed a MS to C.L. Webster & Co. [MTP]. Note: This was probably the second part of Tom Sawyer Abroad.
October 13 Thursday – At the Villa Viviani in Florence, Sam wrote to Henry M. Alden of Harper’s.
I am going to send you an article entitled “A Curious Book” if I can finish it to my satisfaction; & if you like it & don’t like my price, won’t you make one yourself, so that I can see how far my arguments fail of being sound?
October 14 Friday – In Florence Sam wrote a short, three-paragraph note to Clara Clemens in Berlin, directing her to ask William Phelps if she should need help having her trunks delivered. In another letter to A.S. Hogue (Vice-consul) this date, Sam disclosed that two trunks with clothes were lost, though he felt they “must be in Berlin.” He also reported the family’s health to Clara:
October 15 Saturday – The Illustrated News of the World (New York issue) ran a second segment of “The German Chicago.” Other segments ran on Oct. 8 and Nov. 5, 1892 [Willson list, Univ. of Texas at Austin].
October 17 Monday – Chatto & Windus wrote to Sam with “the pleasure of enclosing you a verbatim extract of the note in the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the literature of ‘Joan of Arc’, which we trust will suit your purposes” [MTP].
October 19 Wednesday – From Florence Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder of Century, enclosing “The £1,000,000 Bank Note” story.
Well, you see, what little I have written lately was kind of forced into the Syndicates because they seduce a person by the large wage they pay, which is double & treble what the magazines grant to the laborer in the literary field. Naturally I prefer to be in the magazines, but you see how it is.
October 20 Thursday – Miss Fannie Arnold a teacher at Soule College, Murfreesboro, Tenn., wrote to Sam, having been assigned the subject “Mark Twain” for a gathering of the Charles Egbert Craddock Club. Could Sam suggest an idea for her presentation? How did he come by his literary name? [MTP].
Mrs. James McCall sent Sam a wedding announcement for this date in NewYork for her daughter Fannie to Dr. Dillon Brown [MTP].
October 21 Friday – In Florence Sam wrote to Orion Clemens. Only the envelope survives [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Clara Clemens at Mrs. Mary B. Willard’s school in Berlin.
October 22 Saturday – At the Villa Viviani in Florence Sam wrote to Sue Crane of their satisfaction with the place and the setting.
October 25 Tuesday – Mrs. John C. Pelton wrote from San Francisco in behalf of her husband, Prof. Pelton, asking Sam’s assistance and sending poetry. A recommendation bearing the names of the Governor of California, H.H. Markham, and other dignitaries, accompanied the letter. The flyer notes two books, My Book, and Sunbeams and Shadows [MTP].
October 27 Thursday – Paine includes a “memorandum” of Sam’s with this date: