July 14 Wednesday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to George E. Waring, Jr. (1833-1898), whom he may have met at the Dec. 15, 1874 Atlantic Monthly contributors’ dinner. Waring had called at Sam’s home, but Sam was away. Sam wrote that he and family would be at Bateman’s Point, Newport, Rhode Island on July 31, and hoped to see Waring there [MTL 6: 512].
July 16? Friday – Sam sent the title page of Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old to Elisha Bliss, and asked him to print and mail the page to Washington for copyright [MTL 6: 513]. Duckett gives July 21 as the copyright date [104].
July 19 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Mary F. Foster, sending copies of his books for a library project [MTL 6: 514].
In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam and declined to collaborate on writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as a play:
“But I couldn’t do it, and if I could, it wouldn’t be a favor to dramatize your story. In fact I don’t see how anybody can do that but yourself” [MTHL 1: 96].
July 20 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to James R. Osgood on the William F. Gill matter, that stopping legal action now was perhaps the best result they might obtain. Still,
“It seems a shame that a thief can go on & print 2000 copies of stolen goods & escape punishment through the weakness of the law” [MTL 6: 514].
July 21 Wednesday –Sam submitted a synopsis of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Drama to the Library of Congress for copyright. Norton concludes that since the synopsis includes all of what would make up the published book that the “essential work had been done ten months earlier” [Writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 21].
July 23 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Pamela Moffett. Sam had utter disdain for the temperance activists, who he said blamed the maker of rum and not the drinker of it.
July 26 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Orion, enclosing $82 requested as a loan. Orion was sending monthly detailed accounts of his chicken farm income and expenses and borrowing another $100 each time. Sam eyeballed a $25 expense for the rental of a pew in church and made a point of “principle” in this reply. “You might as well borrow money to sport diamonds with,” Sam admonished [MTL 6: 519].
July 29? Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to James Redpath who had sent “customary annual lecture temptations!” Sam still did not want to lecture—at any price.
“All last winter I sat at home drunk with joy over every storm that howled along, because I knew that some dog of a lecturer was out in it” [MTL 6: 520-1].