September – Sam wrote an untitled burlesque letter from Lord Byron to Mark Twain, which was published posthumously [Camfield, bibliog.]. The impetus for the letter was no doubt Harriet Beecher Stowe’s bombshell article in the Atlantic, “The True Story of Lady Byron’s Life,” which exposed an affair by Lord Byron with his half sister, Augusta Leigh. Significantly, the article ran during James T. Fields’ (1817-1881) European vacation, with Howells in charge. This was a clear blunder, one of the few by Howells, and probably an attempt to placate Stowe. The British took the article as a national insult [Goodman and Dawson 131-2].