May 1 Monday – The Hartford Courant ran this notice on page two:
Mr. Isaac White made some fine portraits of Mark Twain last week, cabinet size, which he has for sale at his place of business, 15 Pratt street. Note: “Cabinet”—“a popular sized professional portrait, with mount measuring 6⅝ in. by 4¼ in. Copies of two of White’s portraits of Clemens survive, with the sealskin coat he purchased in Buffalo in Sept. 1871.
May – “Mark Twain and the Cats” ran in the May issue of the women’s magazine, The Globe. A New Musical Journal, Vol. V. No. 5, New York: Charles A. Atkinson & Co. p. 101-24. The article included an engraving of Sam and one of three cats [eBay June 6, 2009, # 200347763614].
April 29 Saturday – The Fieldses ended their visit with the Clemens family. Sam wrote in the morning from Hartford to Isaac White, a Hartford photographer and sculptor, about ordering photographs that White had taken of the Clemens family (two survive). Sam was waiting for “relatives” to leave Tuesday [MTLE 1: 53; MTPO & notes].
April 28 Friday – The Fieldses, guests at the Clemens’ home, spent most of the day with Sam and Livy. Susy was ill again, with a touch of diphtheria. From Annie Fields’ diary:
Their two beautiful baby girls came to pass an hour with us after breakfast—exquisite, affectionate children, the very fountain of joy to their interesting parents.
April 27 Thursday – The play of Apr. 26 was repeated. James T. Fields and wife came from Boston to see Sam play the slow Dutchman, Peter Spuyk in Loan of a Lover [Clemens to Howells, Apr. 26]. The Fieldses went straight from the train station to the theater. From Annie A. Fields’ diary:
April 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George Bentley, London publisher of the Temple Bar, who had asked for sketches when Sam met him with Joaquin Miller. Sam sent a sketch, “Carnival of Crime” that missed the deadline for the May issue of the Atlantic [MTLE 1: 48].
April 25 Tuesday – From the Hartford Courant, page two:
Mark Twain’s new book, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” is ready to issue, but the publication has been put off for the present in order that copyright may be secured in England by simultaneous publication there and here. The English edition has suffered unavoidable delay. [Note: On Apr. 27 the Boston Globe ran the identical article, without credit to the Courant (“Table Gossip,” p3)].
April 24 Monday – Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens, sending a check for three months.
“Livy is only about customarily well—that is to say, in rather indifferent strength. As I don’t enjoy letter writing there being such an awful lot of it to do, I will try to make up with a photograph” [MTPO].
Sam also wrote to an unidentified person who had sent him and Livy wedding invitations.
April 22 Saturday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Howells.
“You’ll see per enclosed slip that I appear for the first time on the stage [in a play] next Wednesday. You & Mrs. H. come down & you shall skip in free” [MTLE 1: 46]. Note: the play, The Loan of a Lover, on Wednesday, 26 April, and Thursday, 27 April.
From Lilly Warner’s diary:
April 19 Wednesday – Lemuel H. Wilson wrote to Sam, thanking him again for the picture rec’d a year before and enclosing sample “articles” which he’d just acquired the patent on [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the letter, “Lot of toilet articles named for me!”