April 21 Saturday – The London Chronicle, p.3 “The New Mark Twain” gave Tom Sawyer Abroad a mixed review:

Is this a new Mark Twain, or is it the old? Is it the man who gave us the Innocents and Smiley, or a worn humourist harping upon an ancient string? The man in the street has asked the question since he heard that there was to be a sequel to Tom Sawyer, who has cooled his heels for “more than a luster” in St. Louis. …There are dull pages and irritating comic platitudes enough, it must be admitted; whole chapters provocative of sleep, ancient humours, gilded and coated, but showing their rags beneath the finery — yet there are other pages which scintillate with wit, quaint conceits worthy of the old Mark Twain, and a general glamour of wildness which captivates and redeems. It is not a great book, it is very far from representative at its best that peculiar deductive humour which, as Mr. Howells bears witness, is the marrow of the author’s creations. But there are the happiest things possible in it, and they are abundant enough to condone the tedium and the strain which the most generous of the uncritical must admit [Budd, Contemporary 343].