August 16 Tuesday – In Belmont, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam:

Your Ashfield audience will be the farmer-folks of the region, quiet and dull on top, but full of grit and fun; they’re fond of speaking, and rather cultivated, but not spoiled. They know you, like a book, and you can trust all your points to them. Their life is one of deadly solitude and suffocating frugality; but they are smart. They will stand lots of human nature from you [MTHL 1: 365].

August 15 Monday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Benjamin H. Ticknor, agreeing with Ticknor’s processing an engraving cut down to the required reduction. Sam would wait for Chapter 1 of P&P to evaluate the book fully illustrated consecutively [MTP].

August 14 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Benjamin H. Ticknor about the advertising circular for P&P, and the illustrations he’d chosen for a run of 20 special books. Frank T. Merrill was the principal illustrator of the book and Sam wrote:

August 13 Saturday – A.W. Johnson wrote from Salisbury, Mo. to tell Clemens of his wife’s connections to Florida, Mo. and of his love of Sam’s books [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “From a fellow native’s husband”

Mark Twain Club per Phil Hannagan sent a voluminous paper, “Twain Club Papers No 1” to Clemens [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Introduced by that lunatic Irishman of Carlow Castle”

August 12 Friday – Sam wrote twice from Elmira to Charles Webster. The longest letter asked him to negotiate with the remodelers William & Robert Garvie and James Ahern on work in progress at the Farmington Avenue house, principally a remodel of the kitchen. Sam gave quite a long laundry list of things to check, recheck, prove and consider.

August 11 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Benjamin H. Ticknor, enclosing a check for $850.26 for publishing costs, probably for P&P and its circular. Ticknor had requested sales points for a circular and Sam replied that he wasn’t the best man to give them, that he should “leave it alone ten days & then get the points from Osgood & Anthony, & a suggestion or two from Howells…” [MTP]. (See Aug.14.)

August 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Joel Chandler Harris in Atlanta, who wrote Sam on Aug. 4 [MTLP 401].

August 9 Tuesday – Marie A. Brown wrote from Chicago to Sam: “Your advice to authors—to publish themselves and to give a commission to instead of receiving it from publishers—is invaluable, and I long to follow it.” She asked his further advice about her six historical novels from the Swedish [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “A Curiosity"

August 8 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Franklin Whitmore. He complained of lumbago from “Carrying Jean up & down in the car, on that red-hot 12 hour trip.” He told of Jean’s whimpering and of Susy and Clara’s stoicism during the ordeal.

August 7 Sunday Livy wrote from Elmira to Hattie Gerhardt, and Sam added “God be wi’ ye!” at the end. The letter was about their “long and very tiresome trip from the sea side to Quarry Farm; of baby Jean and her preference for her father; and admonitions for Karl Gerhardt not to work too hard; and an inquiry if they’d seen Mrs. Warner, who evidently was visiting the Continent [MTP].