March – Sometime during the month, Sam wrote from Hartford to Louisa I. Conrad, a neighbor in St. Louis in 1867. Sam’s letter is a humorous “RECIPE FOR MAKING A SCRAPBOOK” [MTL 5: 303].

Sam also wrote, possibly this month, to Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), who had asked Sam to contribute to his column in the New York Weekly. Sam wrote a humorous decline, which he knew would be published; and it was, on July 14 [MTL 5: 304-6 & 306n1]. Note: The Twainian of Feb. 1944 gives this as the July 14, 1873 issue of the Weekly, and explains that since Sam was under contract to American Publishing Co., for all sketches, he supplied an article in the form of a letter to Billings [1]. Previously in error as July 28.

As of Mar. 1, 1873, a total of 77,654 copies of Roughing It and 103,907 of Innocents Abroad had been sold [MTL 5: 310n6].