Vol 3 Section 0617

September 14 Saturday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam answered two questions sent by Augustus T. Gurlitz, who was handling Rudyard Kipling’s lawsuit against Putnam. Sam felt the elephant-head logo used by Kipling on his “Outward Bound Edition” should not be appropriated by Putnam in the “Brushwood Edition,” as it would “necessarily injure” Kipling by causing “confusion in the market.” As for the second question, Clemens answered:

“According to my observation, an author is injured by the publication of any unauthorized edition of his works; & in the case where an author is himself publishing an edition of his works, & another person without his authority also publishes…the injury is of course likely to be much greater….” [MTP: Sotheby’s].

September 15 Sunday – Sam inscribed in the front free endpaper of Great Religions of the World, by Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935), et al (1901): “S.L. Clemens / Ampersand / Saranac Lake, N.Y. / Sept. 15, 1901.” Sam annotated the book liberally [Gribben 274]. Note: See The Twainian 38 (Jan-Feb 1979), 1-4; Mar-Apr 1979, 1-3.

Samuel E. Moffett wrote to Sam

Dear Uncle. / I am glad my Nineteenth Century article has pleased you. It seems to have been well regarded in this country, but not in England. I get frequent letters of remonstrance from Englishmen, some abusive and others argumentative.

I have just come back from Tennessee. It looks as if all we had left there were half the mineral rights on about 1500 acres of land but even that ought to be valuable. I have brought some pretty samples of coal from one of those tracts, which I should like to show to you and the Langdons.

Moffett said he thought the 100,000 acres the family used to own would now be worth about a million dollars. He also wrote of no one knowing where he’d gone, and when President McKinley was shot he was in Staunton, Va. and thought it strange that no flags were flying, much less any at half- mast, but when he returned to New York there was a flag on every house and building. He told of William Randolph Hearst telegraphing everywhere trying to locate him, and he admitted he’d chosen a bad time to be away [MTP].

September 16 Monday – Saranac Lake: Sam wrote to Mrs. Virginia Frazer Boyle in Memphis, Tenn.

They arrived last night, & I have drunk to them & from them “with my heart” & to the holy & pathetic things which they stand for & symbolize, the golden days of a vanished youth. I give you my best thanks for them; & for the darling poem, which is lovely & beautiful, & eloquent with the spirit of those same lost & lamented days.

Sam felt at his age he would never make a trip to Memphis, but invited the Boyle’s to see them, only 25 minutes from Grand Central. They were packing to leave for Elmira [MTP]. See also Feb. 14 entry.

September 17 Tuesday

September 18 Wednesday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers that they were packed and would leave in the morning for Elmira. The rest of the letter has to do with what he felt was “a mighty cold -blooded piece of rascality” by the R.G. Newbegin Co. in resorting “to forgery” in their pamphlet on his uniform edition. He suggested a lawsuit:

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