Clemens family stayed first with the Langdons, until June 29, in Elmira, before adjourning to Quarry Farm. Sam would immediately depart for the Congress of Authors Centennial Event in Philadelphia on July 1st.
Sometime before July 6, Sam traveled to Hartford and returned to Elmira by the 18th.
June, before the 15th – Sam wrote from Hartford to James Hammond Trumbull, enclosing Frank Etting’s reply to Sam’s questions about the Centennial event in Philadelphia. Etting had urged Sam and Trumbull to come; that there would be 150 authors and that not every one could read every piece but many would read part. Trumbull had provided the multilingual chapter epigraphs for The Gilded Age.
June 14 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to “Miss Harriet” responding to an autograph request. Even in a knock-off line, Sam could be hilariously brilliant:
“I am a long time answering your letter, my dear Miss Harriet, but then you must remember that it is an equally long time since I received it—so that makes us even, & nobody to blame on either side” [MTLE 1: 69].
June 13 Tuesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote a postcard to Sam. Howells was going to Philadelphia on July 3, so he couldn’t attend the Congress of Authors there on July 1. Did Sam get the long letter he’d written that week? “We go into the country this week: Shirley Village, Mass.” [MTHL 1:141].
June 10 Saturday – Sam must have heard from John RoBards, the boyhood friend he’d contracted to move his brother and father’s remains to the newer cemetery. He wrote from Hartford to RoBards, thanking him and asking to send any left over money to his mother in Fredonia, New York [MTLE 1: 68].
Duckett gives this as the date the English version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was ready [106].
June 9 Friday – Chatto & Windus, London issued the English edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a full six months ahead of the U.S. release [MTPO Notes with Nov. 2, 1876 to Conway].
Sam wrote a short note “To Whom It May Concern” introducing his mother, Jane Clemens, and his sister Pamela Moffett, who would be traveling [MTLE 1: 67].
June 8 Thursday – Clara Clemens’ second birthday.
June 7 Wednesday – Eugene Holby wrote from Springfield to invite Sam to lecture there [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “NO”
June 4 Sunday – Information Wanted and Other Sketches by Mark Twain was published by George Routledge and Sons, London during the year. [Johnson 41-2]. Note: He gives June 4, 1876 as the earliest presentation copy found.
June 3 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mary Mason Fairbanks that he had decided to “remain away from the Centennial [in Philadelphia] altogether, for an interruption of my work is disastrous to it.”