Vol 3 Section 0056
1898), Idler (Feb. 1898), and other magazines. But at this time Sam wasn’t having any interviews or contributing to any biographical features.
My desire is to keep wholly out of print for a long time yet; for until the hurt of my bereavement shall have healed in some degree I have no heart for publicity…I am at work & shall go on; indeed there is no fear that I shall fall into idle ways, since when one works one lives in another world & can make his own heaven—a most desirable thing to do when death has darkened this one. I do not go out, & do not see anybody; & this is well when one has a long book under way & no surplus time in stock…[MTP: Swann Galleries, Inc. catalog, 14 Mar. 1991, Item 284].
Note: Robert Barr would write a couple of works listed by Gribben in Sam’s library, one in March of this year in The Bookman that Sam wrote his enjoyment of on Sept. 29. See p. 48-9. He is most remembered for finishing Stephen Crane’s The O’Ruddy and for creating the French detective Eugene Valmont. He wrote about 30 novels and dozens of short stories. Also, he was the founder and publisher of the London literary monthly, The Idler.
February 11 Thursday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, ordering two books, one “something that will explain the law of whom to leave cards on” [MTP: American Art Assoc. catalogs, Apr. 18, 1929, Item 76]. Note: English etiquette regarding calling cards was evidently somewhat foreign to the Clemens family.
Sam signed the Chelsea Library Visitor’s Book: “Truly Yours SL. Clemens, Mark Twain / 11th February, 1897” [Mark Twain Journal 36:2 (Fall 1998) p.31].
February 12 Friday
February 13 Saturday – The Hartford Courant, p. 8, ran “An Appreciation of Mark Twain,” observing from William Dean Howells’ May 30, 1896 review of JA (reprinted in MMT p.150-6):
Mr. Howells, in his department in “Harper’s Weekly,” has a hearty appreciation of Mark Twain. He lauds in particular one of the humorist’s books which mortally offended the English [ CY] and which the majority of Americans, perhaps, will not agree with Howells in regarding as Mr. Clemens’s best work…
Harper’s Weekly included an article, “Mark Twain” by William Dean Howells. Tenney: “A general survey of MT’s works occasioned by a new Author’s National Edition. Praises ‘Some Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.’ ‘If I were to choose anything of the author’s that would upon the whole most nearly represent the peculiar quality of his gift, I should choose this.’ Howells likes HF and P&P, but ‘none of his romances see so great to me’ as CY [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) p.7].
February 14 Sunday
February 15 Monday
February 16 Tuesday – Dial included “Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain,” by D.L. Maulsby, p. 107-9. “A general defense of Cooper against MT’s exaggerated charges, though conceding defects in characterization and style. Some of Cooper’s descriptions are based on personal observation, and MT, unfamiliar with the locale, is presumptuous to criticize. Cooper’s works have the merits of their out-of-door atmosphere and essentially American quality” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide First Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1977 p. 331].
February 17 Wednesday
February 18 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.