May 7 Saturday – The Boston Literary World, under “Fiction” reviewed Merry Tales:

Merry Tales, by Mark Twain, is a small volume which gathers seven short stories within the space of one hundred and sixty pages, and will excite the reader to a number of hearty laughs. Of course there are bare places, where the soil is sandy and the vegetation sparse, but if one likes this sort of humor, this is just the sort he will like. We would not recommend the “Invalids’ Story” to any one who has recently felt the presence of death. Mr. Clemens is nothing if not irreverent of the most sacred things in human life [Budd, Contemporary 324].

Daniel Webster Church, an attorney in Greenfield, Iowa wrote to Sam:

When my former book “The Records of a Journey” was published I sent you a copy of it. And although it probably did not attract your attention I have concluded to try again, and hence send you the succeeding volume “The Enigma of Life” [Gribben 143]. Note: Gribben lists Church as “an attorney in Greenfield, Iowa.” The Records of a Journey. A Prologue (1888).