Dear Peter Messent--

There was a lot written about Mark Twain in white during
the last decade of his life -- if your colleague is
interested in that, there are several (I think 4)
contemporary newspaper articles in my website *Mark Twain
in His Times* (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton).  You'll
see a heading for "The White Suit" under the category
"Sam Clemens as Mark Twain."

I'm sure there are other articles in Barbara Schmidt's
thorough list of New York Times articles about MT --
http://www.tarleton.edu/~schmidt/nytindex.html

Stephen Railton