December 23 Tuesday – American Publishing Co. published The Gilded Age in Hartford. Thus, Sam fulfilled English law by both residence and prior publishing on English soil the day before. Sam and Frank Finlay called on George and Ida Finlay and family.

Sam wrote from London to Livy about the night before when everyone had leveled his or her opera glasses at him instead of the speaker Burnand.  Sam went back stage and complimented Burnand on his “wonderfully humorous, witty, bright, tip-top entertainment” [MTL 5: 532].

The Boston Evening Transcript, p.6 under “Literary Matters” reviewed the Gilded Age:

…a volume which shines with no meretricious light but with a genuine and intrinsic radiance. It contains some of the most vivid and natural characterizations of any book recently published in the United States [Budd, Reviews 119].

The Hartford Times found the book to be:

…a very odd piece of architecture…a trifle jerky and jolty…and a certain characteristic of abruptness and unexpectedness in the method of developing the story may mean that two hands did fashion the work…[120].

Dr. John Brown wrote to ask Sam when he was coming to Edinburgh [MTP].