August 10 Thursday – Helen M. Chapin (Mrs. Thomas E. Chapin) wrote from Newton Centre, Mass. “Please do me the favor to accept the contents of a box which I send by the same mail, with the hope that they will amuse you. They are four ‘Illuminated Silhouettes’ …If you will hold them between your eye and the light you will be able to see through them, and perhaps read a moral lesson!” [MTP]. Note: sent to Hartford, not Elmira.

Moncure Conway wrote from Ostend, Belgium.

August 9 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to William Dean Howells after receiving his letter. Sam mentioned the Tilden club invitation and his answer, Susy’s larger shoes (which she used as an excuse not to be able to pray), the idyllic setting of Quarry Farm and this noteworthy item:

August 8 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Bliss. Sam had received a response from Bliss to his last letter and denied making propositions to Dustin, Gilman & Co. or any other publisher. Sam agreed to make The Adventures of Tom Sawyer a holiday book. Sam also wanted Howells’ Atlantic review to be put into the prospectus that went to editors.

August 7 Monday – Elisha Bliss wrote proof notes on TS to Sam: “Richardson made more trouble over every page than you do in a whole book. Your model MS is my standard to gauge others by, & must not be much better & cant be really” [MTP].

August 6 or 7 Monday – Sam responded from Elmira to a request by Hugh F. McDermott that he attend a flag raising for political candidates Samuel J. Tilden (1814-1886) and Thomas A. Hendricks (1819-1885) at a Jersey City, New Jersey club.

August 5 Saturday – In Townsend Harbor, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam. After some playful recriminations about sending a long letter and receiving back only a postcard, Howells told of their vacation, his writing, and his beginning of the life of Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) for the campaign. He also asked about Sam’s “double-barrel novel” and would he sell it to the Atlantic for next year? [MTHL 1: 142].

August 4 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Mary Mason Fairbanks urging her to visit. He claimed his “pet book, which lies at home one-third done & never more to be touched…Destroyed by a vacation,” so that he could not leave Quarry Farm to visit anyone since he was “tearing along on a new book” and that each time Livy took a trip down the hill it laid her up for two days [MTLE 1: 93].

August 2 Wednesday – Thomas C. Noble, Jr. wrote from Cumberland Centre, Maine to offer his services as an “old and experienced hand” of a playwright who would “be most happy to give…all the instruction” he needed. He’d been a teacher, and added, “If you do not answer me I shall write you twice a day for the next three months” [MTP]. Note: any answer is not extant.

August 1 Tuesday – In Elmira, Sam sent a post card to the American Publishing Co. requesting two cloth copies of Charles Dudley Warner’s book, Mummies or Moslems [MTLE 1: 89; Aug. 8 to Bliss].

August – Sometime during the month at Quarry Farm, Sam began “A Record of the Small Foolishnesses of Susie & ‘Bay’ Clemens (Infants)”. The document would grow for nine years [MTNJ 2: 365n32]. (See July 1880 entry.)