Vol 3 Section 0403

April 10 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Dillingham, Savoy, dinner, 7.30. / Marda. / She Stoops to Conquer. / Invite Doubleday & wife here to tea” [NB 43 TS 8].

Note: this entry was written & struck through on Apr. 7. Sam noted Oliver Goldsmiths’ (1728-1774) play, She Stoops to Conquer. Gribben speculates “conceivably he saw a performance of it around that time in London”

               “Marda” (which Sam spelled “Morda” in his Apr. 7 cancel entry) was possibly Magda by Prussian Hermann Sudermann (1857-1928). The best known of Sudermann’s plays is Die Heimat, translated under the title Magda, the name of its heroine. The title role of this play attracted such renowned actresses as Modjeska, Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Gribben lists two books by Suderman

              Frank N. Doubleday.

April 11 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Made Director” [NB 43 TS 8]. Note: of the Plasmon Syndicate.

Paul Kester replied to Sam’s Mar. 24 suggestions:

Your letter reached us on Saturday evening, your postscript has just come. We descended upon Mr. Howells at ten o’clock Sunday night, our first chance, and broke up a gathering of Miss Mildred’s and exhibited your letter in triumph. Mr. Howells seemed quite willing to umpire the arrangement, and as soon as we have gone over the matter with him we will submit our ideas to Mr. Rogers for his opinion and send you the figures at once. My idea would be that a percent of the gross receipts would be the best arrangement, say five percent on the first four thousand, seven-and-a-half percent on the fifth thousand, and ten percent of everything above that amount….We have visions of three or four Tom Sawyer companies passing in triumph

over the land and bringing in barrels of money. We think it may prove another Uncle Tom’s Cabin if the play has half the charm of the book [MTHHR 438n1; MTP]. Note: Sam had advised Rogers of a receipts royalty of 20 to 25%. The final terms secured by Rogers in the May 28 contract included a sliding scale of royalties from 6 to 12%.

April 12 Thursday – In London, England Sam wrote to George B. Harvey, sending a table of contents for the proposed London and Tauchnitz editions of The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories. Sam wrote he’d “knocked out 42,000 words & left 130,000—an over-abundance still,” and gave Harvey, the new President of Harper & Brothers, permission to “knock out anything you want; & leave in anything you please” [MTP]. Note: the letter written on old Chatto & Windus letterhead.

Sam’s notebook: “‘Daughters of the Crown.’ / The 400. Ward McAlister [sic]” [NB 43 TS 8]. Gribben refers this to Samuel Ward MacAllister (1827-1895) and his book, Society As I Have Found It (1890), where Sam wrote on the front flyleaf: “There is here nothing but the vulgarity of good society—just that and not another specialty. Unchastly, the bar sinister, greed, swinishness, insolence, arrogance, and many other absolute essentials of a real Aristocracy are wanting” [434]. Sam’s reference to the “Daughters of the Crown” was likely to a group whose membership required applicants to be American descendants of Chas. II. See speech to Lotos Club, Nov. 10, 1900

April 13 Friday – The Clemens family were at Henry M. Stanley’s country place for a “few days’ visit”. They returned to 30 Wellington Court by Apr. 17 [Apr. 17 to James]. Note: on Jan. 10, 1899 the Stanley’s took possession of a house named “Furze Hill” in Pirbright, Surrey, some 30 miles from London [The Autobiography of Henry M. Stanley, p.507 (1909)].

April 14 Saturday – The Clemens family were at Henry M. Stanley’s country place in Surrey.

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.