Italy and the Villa Viviani: DBD

November 1 Tuesday – Mrs. William S. Karr sent Mr. & Mrs. Clemens a wedding invitation for her daughter Helen to Mr. Lucius Chester Ryce, on this date in Hartford [MTP]. Note: Geer’s 1886 Hartford City Directory lists “Karr William S. professor Hartford Theological Seminary.”

November 10 Thursday – In Florence, Sam wrote a short note thanking Chatto & Windus for a copy of Finger Prints which just arrived. He would “devour it” [MTP]. Note: See Gribben, p.251. Francis Galton was the author (1892). Sam would use the new science in his detective tale, Pudd’nhead Wilson. See also June 25, 1895 and Feb. 23, 1897 entries relating to Galton’s book and its contribution.

November 11 Friday – The King sisters ended their month-long visit and left for Paris [Nov. 10 to Clara Clemens]. Sam threw himself into finishing PW:

Dec. 20/92. Finished ‘Pudd’nhead Wilson’ last Wednesday, 14th. Began it 11th or 12th of last month, after the King girls left. Wrote more than 60,000 words between Nov. 12 and Dec. 14. One day, [Dec. 1] wrote 6,000 words in 13 hours. Another day wrote 5,000 in 11 [MTLTP 328-9; NB 32, TS 51].

November 12 Saturday – The N.Y. Times, Nov. 13, 1892 p.2 ran an obituary notice for Dr. A. Reeves Jackson of Chicago, who died this day.

…the original of Mark Twain’s character My Friend the Doctor, in “Innocents Abroad,” died …Dr. Jackson had been ill ten days from the effects of a stroke of apoplexy. He will be interred at Janesville, Wis. [Note: Dr. Jackson was one of Sam’s favorites on the QC excursion.]

November 13 Sunday – In Florence, Sam sent condolences to his Hartford attorney and billiards buddy, Henry C. Robinson, whose mother had just passed away. The Courant had come and Sam mentioned “Dr. Parker’s well-thought & well-said words” [MTP].

November 16 Wednesday – In Florence Sam wrote to daughter Clara at Mrs. Mary B. Willard’s school in Berlin. In the top margin he wrote that Ned Bunce wanted her address. After expressing concern for Clara reporting she’d had a case of the “grippe” (flu; influenza) he wrote he was relieved she was better. Livy was not; she was “very weak & all wasted away.”

November 2 Wednesday – In Florence Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. The bulk of Sam’s letter expresses dissatisfaction with American Publishing Co. He wished he could get the contracts with them annulled, since he felt a “deliberate violation of the most important feature” of their contracts should allow him to do so. They did not allow Webster & Co. to make a sufficient profit on the books they published, giving only “not ten cents on any book” of his.

November 20 Sunday – Elihu Root for the New England Society wrote to Sam, asking him to respond to a toast at the 87th annual dinner held Dec. 22 [MTP].

November 24 Thursday – In Florence Sam wrote to Henry M. Alden of Harper & Brothers. He had sent what he thought was “the most delicious thing that has been offered to a magazine in 30 years,” and would “never get over the astonishment” of Alden’s rejection, simply because Sam did not write it.

November 26 Saturday – A. Bliss wrote from Harrow, England asking for Sam’s autograph [MTP].

November 27 Sunday – Livy’s 47th birthday. Sam wrote her a three-stanza poem titled, “The Earth Invoketh the Sun” [MTP].

November 28–December 1 Thursday – In Florence Sam wrote to George H. Warner.

November 3 Thursday – In Florence Sam wrote to “Baby Ruth” — one year old Ruth Cleveland (1891-1904).

Dear Miss Cleveland:

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 57th Birthday. From his notebook in Florence:

Nov. 30, 1892 — 57 years old. I wish it were either 17 or 97 [NB 32 TS 47].

November 4 Friday – In Florence Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall, requesting that “cloth copies of such books of mine as you publish (no others)” be sent to Vice-Consul-General A.S. Hogue in Frankfurt. “He has been having my MS typewritten in his office and refuses pay” [MTP].

November 5 Saturday – In Florence Sam wrote to daughter Clara at Mrs. Mary B. Willard’s school in Berlin of recent events and of a visit this day by Laurence Hutton.

Uncle Larry was up, to-day, but your Aunt Larry was kept at home by illness. He was very lovely, & stayed till 4 & I walked down with him nearly to that bridge-arch which is at this end of the Via della Cenacolo. He says Mr. Booth is doubtless nearing his end — Booth himself thinks so, & speaks of it unregretfully.

November 6 Sunday – In Florence, Susy Clemens wrote Louise Brownell:

November 8 Tuesday – In Florence Sam wrote to Miss Page, thanking her for letting him “see those pleasant words.” Miss Page and those mentioned were evidently residents of Florence.

November 9 Wednesday – Livy came down with an attack of dysentery [Nov. 10 to Clara Clemens].

J.W. Ryckman for Authors & Actors Carnival, N.Y.C. wrote asking Sam to be on the “Committee of prominent citizens” for the carnival, Dec. 19 to 31 [MTP].

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 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].