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!”

April 18 Tuesday – The Hartford Courant announced:

Amateur Theatricals.

April 17 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to John L. RoBards, now an attorney in Hannibal, responding to an old offer to move the coffins of his brother Henry and his father, John Marshall Clemens, from the Old Baptist Cemetery, a mile and a half from Hannibal, to the newer Mount Olivet Cemetery, southwest of town, which RoBards had founded.

April 16 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Moncure Conway. Evidently Bliss had given it to Sam straight about progress on the pictures, for Sam told Conway:

Just as I feared, Tom Sawyer is not yet ready to issue. Would not be ready for 2 weeks or longer, yet. Therefore the spring trade is lost beyond redemption. Consequently I have told Bliss to issue in the autumn & make a Boy’s Holiday Book of it.

April 15 Saturday – Ainsworth R. Spofford confirmed copyright for Mark Twain’s Sketches New & Old entered July 21, 1875.

Francis Boott wrote from Cambridge, Mass apologizing for not sooner answering Sam’s note of Apr. 3, which reached him through Howells. “I was glad to learn that the little trifle I sent had given pleasure…” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Boott Composer”

April 14 Friday - O.C. Greene wrote from Duluth, Minn. to relate a story found in the diary of a late friend in 1864 -- an old pepperbox and the head of a buffalo strung dangling from an old tree somewhere 10 miles west of the South Platte. Greene felt this did “justice to the aspersed reputation of Mr. Bemis” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env.

April 12 Wednesday – Sam wrote a postcard from Hartford to Bliss. He’d received Bliss’ statement but not the check. Sam also wanted the price estimates on the “Full set, of full plates, full size” for those cuts that would go “into that English size without cutting. Please hurry it up” [MTLE 1:42].

Phineas T. Barnum wrote to Sam asking what he should change on an enclosure (not in file) [MTP].