June – Sometime during the month Sam answered E.W. Stephens’s May 20 invitation. Sam wrote he’d been “ailing for two or three weeks,” and that he’d made passage for the family to Europe and expected to be there “from the end of June till near October,” though this didn’t mean he would be able to go, since “Providence will rip up the engagement when the time comes.” [The Clemens family did not go to Europe this year.]

I have an honest love for the press-boys of my native state, and a most grateful appreciation of the great compliment they have paid me, but you see how I am situated [MTP].

Sam’s “Reply to the Editor of ‘The Art of Authorship’” first appeared in the collection published this month titled The Art of Authorship, edited by George Bainton [Budd, Collected 945-6, 1023].

Webster & Co. sent Sam a “Books sent out during May, 1890” report, totaling 7,040 books with 1,509 Huck Finns and 664 CY [MTP]. Note: the MTP catalogues this as a May incoming entry.

J.G. Rathbun Pharmacists, Hartford, billed $3.55 for Apr 7, 12, 16 purchases, toothbrushes, castor oil, vaseline, comb, candy, etc.; Paid July 2 [MTP].