February 3 Thursday – Joe Twichell wrote from Hartford.

Dear Mark, / I have just refused to ask you to lecture or read in a case in which I would have hardly refused anything I could do but that. Mrs. G. F. Davis of Washington St, representing the Orphan Asylum now caught in a pecuniary crisis, is the party I turned away, not without regret and, I confess, considerable compunction. But I have sworn not to let my personal relations to you be utilized in that way. I had to do it in self defense, and in decency.

February 2 Wednesday – Sam inscribed a copy of Franz Ahn’s (1796-1865) Ahn’s First German Book (1873): “S.L. Clemens, Hartford, Feb. 2, ’76” [Gribben 13].

Mary Mason Fairbanks wrote from Camden, N.J.

My Dear Samuel / “A blue trip slip for a six cent fare”—you see I have caught the infection. The last Atlantic brought it into our family and since then it has spread throughout the house.

February – William Dean Howells published a review of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in the Atlantic. Howells gave Sam high praise for the boy-mind presentation “with a fidelity to circumstance which loses no charm by being realistic in the highest degree.” Howells called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer a book “full of entertaining character, and of the greatest artistic sincerity.” The only thing off about the review was the unintended timing, caused by the long delay in the book’s publication.

January 31 Monday – Frank Fuller wrote from NYC to Sam [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Ex-gov of Utah Territory”—a joke about Fuller being acting Governor for a day.

January 29 Saturday – Sam’s notes in Hyppolyte Taine’s The Ancient Regime (1876) state that he finished reading the book on this day [Slotta 32]. This was a major sourcebook for both P&P and CY (See also Sept. 10 entry).

January 28 Friday – Sam wrote a post card from Hartford to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who had been “captured” and confessed his love for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Sam was “delighted!” so much so that he felt healthy again, after being “in the doctor’s hands for 2 months…” [MTLE 1: 16].

Sam also wrote a short note to Miss Higgins (unknown). Sam added a PS:

January 27 Thursday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam, still unable to come down for a quick visit on Saturday, but he was “getting the better” of his “literary misery.” Howells reported praise of Sam’s article in the Feb. Atlantic, “Literary Nightmare” :

January 26 Wednesday – M.M.B. wrote to Sam, clippings enclosed: “A friend sends me the inclosed slip-cut from ‘The Tennessean Observer,’ published at Fernandina, Florida. I thought you could appreciate it is an illustration that truth is stranger than fiction” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “ ‘Tenneseean’ Journalism”

January 25 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood, again about the legal matter of watching William Gill, who had made a habit of plagiarizing and exploiting authors. Sam’s intention was to sue Gill for trademark infringement for using the name “Mark Twain,” a rather novel legal strategy at that time.

January 24 Monday – Sam read his newly drafted story, “Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut” to the Monday Evening Club at his home. This was his third presentation to the club [Monday Evening Club] Twichell remembered the story as “serious in its intent though vastly funny and splendidly, brilliantly read.” The tale was a surreal and dark treatment that questioned the origin and function of the conscience.