August 4 Monday – Sam and Livy traveled on to London.

August 3 Sunday – The Clemens family ended their visit at Condover Hall and went to Oxford, arriving at about 6 PM. There they sent the children on to Brunswick House Hotel, London with Rosa and were shown the colleges by Edward Wyndham [MTNJ 2: 337&n93].

August 1 Friday – Duckett cites Walter Blair’s Mark Twain & Huck Finn, p.114 for a notebook entry not found in MTNJ 2. Sam’s chief criticism of Bret Harte’s fiction at the time was that it “aroused in the ‘upper classes’ too much sympathy for ‘whore’ and ‘burglars.’ ” Blair cites Notebook #14, 18, MTP: “Harte’s saintly wh’s and self-sacrificing sons of b’s” [Duckett 191].

August – Sam’s notebook entry “New Pepys Diary,” shows he was reading Samuel Pepys’ Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, Esq., in 6 volumes (1875-79) [Gribben 539]. Paine writes that “Pepys’ Diary was one of the few books that [Sam] read regularly every year or two” [MTLP 489]. Sam jotted “Our Old Nobility” from articles in the Echo by Howard Evans which attacked hereditary aristocracy and also criticized the 

July 28 Monday – The Clemens family traveled just over 70 miles to spend a week in Condover Hall, in North Shropshire on the west English coast. Paine: “For more than two years they had had an invitation from Reginald Cholmondeley to pay him another visit” [MTB 646]. From Sam’s notebook:

July 26 Saturday – Sam met Lewis Carroll, who later wrote in his diary, “Met Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain), with whom I was pleased and interested” [Green 382]. Paine incorrectly indicates the meeting was in 1873, and uses Sam’s 1906 Autobiography for the recollection of the meeting:

July 24 Thursday – Walter F. Brown, illustrator, wrote from Paris. “I have just received your check for £92.16.0 for which many thanks. I enclose receipted account in full. / You may depend on me to see Mr. St. Gaudens probably today. / I will send the remaining drawings very shortly…P.S. the three faulty drawings will be duly corrected” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Walter F. Brown receipts in full—about $700”.

July 20 Sunday – The Clemens family arrived in London in the morning. Sam wrote in his notebook that the family arrived in London at 8 AM; that it was rainy and cold. They stayed at the Brunswick House Hotel, Hanover Square. “Have had a rousing big cannel-coal fire blazing away in the grate all day.

July 19 Saturday – The Clemens family left The Hague at 6 PM For Flushing. In the late evening they crossed the channel by night boat (see July 20 entry). [MTNJ 2: 331, 333].

July 17 and 18 Friday – The Clemens family left Amsterdam in the afternoon and went to The Hague, “stopping off 2 or 3 hours at Harlaam & visiting farm house, dairy, & beautiful country seat.”

Livy wrote about the farm to her mother on July 20, mentioning young Fraulein Korthals: