July 20 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the July 7 request by Edward Verrall Lucas.

Dear Lucy: / My permission to include the Tom Sawyer extract in your series, you have, straight from the bat, as the worldlings say. My secretary will ask the Harpers to add their permission, & forward it to the Mac Millans or to you.

Love & all good wishes to you & to Punch & that dear little fairy./  Sincerely Yours … [MTP].

Sam’s original guestbook, now in the possession of Kevin Mac Donnell, page 1: Contains the following names headed by July 20, 1908:  

S. L. Clemens – “Innocence at Home”

Ada Frances Howard [not in the new guestbook (also noted in IVL TS 54):]

Margery H Clinton

Predating the new guestbook, which Mary B. Rogers gave to Sam for a Christmas present, and which Sam wrote a preface to on Dec. 29, 1908, this original prior log survives dated July 20, 1908, and contains seven pages with Clemens’ signature and the signatures of guests, followed by 44 blank pages and the last dozen pages at the back have been torn out. The signed pages were transcribed by Sam into the new guestbook a day or two after receiving it. There are discrepancies between the two guestbooks. Guests for the period July 20 to Dec. 29 were transcribed into the new book by Clemens. Ada Frances Howard was a piano accompaniest, likely for Clara Clemens.

Witter Bynner wrote two lines on a postcard from Katahdin Iron Works, Maine: “I hear you’ve moved in. / Congratulations!” [MTP]. Note: IVL: “No answer”

Mrs. Timothy D. Crocker wrote from Geneva, Switzerland to Sam, having read of his Oxford honors and his new home. She referred to their time on the Quaker City [MTP]. Note: see MTL 2: 311n10.