September 8 Wednesday – The Clemens family returned home to Hartford, as reported by the Hartford Courant the next day [MTL 6: 532n2].

At least three newspapers reviewed Sketches, New and Old prior to the first copies being received from the bindery on Sept. 25. These papers, the Hartford Times, Hartford Courant, and the New York Tribune, were likely fed proofs or knew which sketches would be published. Here are remarks from each paper respectively:

Here we have fun alive…..The “Jumping Frog” is rehabilitated, and done up in a new and very droll shape…It is a beautiful volume—full of fine illustrations, and printed on thick calendared paper. Mr. Bliss, the agent, will soon be around with it, and we shall all want this book, if no other (Sept. 8 “Mark Twain’s Sketches,” p.2 )

It will be a better antidote for dyspepsia than the drug story can furnish (Sept. 9: “Mark Twain’s Sketches,” p.2 )

“Mark Twain” is to be honored by a complete edition of his sketches, new and old. It will be issued in a subscription volume of the usual size, but with more noteworthy illustrations and better typography than in the common subscription volumes. The American Publishing Co, Hartford, announce the volume as “the ‘Big Bonanza’ of the literary world” (Sept. 21 “Literary Notes” p.6) [Budd, Reviews 149-50].