June 18 Wednesday – Sam and Thompson returned from Ostend on the H.M.S. Lively. The pair traveled with some of the Shah’s family and several journalists who had accompanied the Shah on the train from Brussels [MTL 5: 384n1]. Once back in London, Sam wrote to Elisha Bliss that he had

“…begun to write about the Shah to N.Y. Herald—don’t want them copyrighted. You seize them as they appear, & turn them into a 24 cent pamphlet (my royalty 10 per cent) & spread them over the land your own way, but be quick! Don’t let it get cold before you are out” [MTL 5: 384].

Sam wrote the first “Shah letter” for the New York Herald: “The Man of Mark Ready to Bring Over the O’Shah.” In the evening Sam and probably Livy and Clara Spaulding used the three tickets Thompson had secured to attend the performance of Madame Ristori in the historical drama Elizabeth at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. This was the same woman Sam had called the “wretched foreign woman” years before [MTNJ 1: 529n8].

At 11 p.m. in London, Sam wrote to Joaquin Miller:

My Dear Miller: Haven’t received the diploma, but would like exceedingly to go with you tomorrow night if I possibly can — & I feel sure I can. The only thing in the way is, that I may possibly not be able to finish a newspaper letter in time on which I am engaged. If you’ll come by for me I can at least talk a bit about Bliss if I can’t leave home. Bliss will make as much money for you as any publisher, & I think considerably more than any other publishers. / PS I enclose picture for Lord Houghton’s daughter [Christie’s Lot 102 Sale 1216 April 8, 2003; avail. Online]. Note: Richard Monckton Milnes, First Baron Houghton, editor of Keats and a literary figure of note; Miller had introduced him to Sam.