May 31 Sunday – Sam’s fifth LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN, dated May 2 from Virginia City ran in the Chicago Republican and included: “CURIOUS CHANGES,” “BRIEF MENTION OF A FRIEND,” “NOVEL ENTERTAINMENT,” “UP AMONG THE CLOUDS,” and “AMEN” [Schmidt].
May 28 Thursday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Elisha Bliss about Bancroft & Co. Publishing handling book sales on the West Coast and in Japan and China.
“I shall have the MSS finished in twenty days & shall start east in the steamer of the 1 of July” [MTL 2: 217-8].
May 21 Thursday – Barton W. Stone Bowen died in Hannibal from a steamboat accident. Bart was a good friend of Sam’s and a fellow pilot; he befriended Sam and offered financial assistance at the time of Henry Clemens’ death. [MTL 4: 119n6].
May 19 Tuesday – Sam’s fourth LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN, dated May 1 from Virginia City, Nevada ran in the Chicago Republican and included: “Bad Jokes,” “LITERARY DEBAUCH,” “HONOR TO WHOM, &C.,” “PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL,” “MAY DAY – A CONTRAST,” and:
AT SEA.
Special Correspondence of the Chicago Republican.
May 18-23 Saturday – Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “Happy Memories of the Dental Chair” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].
May 17 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Fifty-one” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 296-301].
May 12 Tuesday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Mary Mason Fairbanks, including a photograph he had forgotten to include in his letter of May 5.
He also wrote to Frank Fuller about his success in lecturing, his plans to go east the first of July and the news that his book would be issued from the press early in December [MTL 2: 216].
May 5 Tuesday – Sam departed Sacramento at 2 PM on the California Steam Navigation Company’s Capital, with his friend Edward A. Poole as captain. Sam arrived back in San Francisco and stayed at the Occidental Hotel again, and finished his letter of May 1 to Mary Mason Fairbanks.
May 4 Monday – Sam was in transit to San Francisco, by stage and by train. He spent the night in Sacramento [MTL 2: 215n8].
May 3 Sunday – Sam left Virginia City for the trip over the Sierra Nevada, which, due to the late spring snows and railroad repairs, was one of train plus stagecoach for a 30-hour trip to San Francisco [MTL 2: 213n3-4].