January 18 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, answering his Jan. 16 letter:

Thanks, & ever so many, for the good opinion on Tom Sawyer. Williams has made about 200 rattling pictures for it—some of them very dainty. Poor devil, what a genius he has, & how he does murder it with rum. He takes a book of mine, & without suggestion from anybody builds no end of pictures just from his reading of it.

January 17 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood. He wanted a piece of William F. Gill’s hide this time, and told Osgood to pay the lawyers and go after him in court. Sam would go it alone if he had to, and wanted from Gill at least:

January 16 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam, sorry to hear he’d been sick. He declined an invitation from Sam for him and the wife to visit; Howells had company coming and was behind the eight ball on finishing “Private Theatricals,” a serialized article for the Atlantic. He added:

“I’m glad to hear that the Sketches have done so well. Get Bliss to hurry out Tom Sawyer. That boy is going to make a prodigious hit” [MTHL 1: 121].

January 13 Thursday – Miss C.C. Ranstead for the New York Infant Asylum wrote to ask Sam for a testimonial for Maria McLaughlin who had been a wet-nurse for one of the Clemens children. “She represents herself as a deserted wife and is here waiting for her confinement. / A paper of fine-cut tobacco was found in her pocket and a bottle of liquor in [word torn away].

January 12 Wednesday – Moncure Conway wrote a postcard from Concord, Mass: “Thanks!! / I shall arrive in Hartford by train leaving New York at 10 a.m. on the 18th & come straight / M.D. Conway” [MTP].

January 11 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Frank Bliss on an accounting of monies owed, including his debt of a loan to Charles Dudley Warner [MTLE 1: 34]. Note: See list of those who had received books from Sam in the notes online for this letter at MTPO.

January 9 Sunday – William Wright (Dan De Quille) wrote to Sam. In part:

Dear Mark.— I am utterly in the dark in regard to what is being done in Hartford. I wrote to Mr Bliss last Sunday and requested him to let me know how he is getting on. I sent him three prefaces, but don’t know that any one among them is worth a cent. However, he may be able to make one out of the three. I have also thought it might be well enough to have a dedication in it, so inclose one [MTP].

January 5 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Francis D. Clark, secretary for the Associated Pioneers of the Territorial Days of California, to decline an invitation to their first annual meeting and banquet.

January 4 Tuesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam, thanking him for a copy of the Jumping Frog book sent after not hearing from Sam for awhile. “The more I think over your boy-book [The Adventures of Tom Sawyer] the more I like it.” Was it true that Sam was going to Europe in the spring? [MTHL 1: 118].

Moncure Conway wrote a postcard to ask Sam if he’d express Conway’s overshoes to Boston [MTP].

January 2 Sunday – In New York, Bret Harte wrote to Sam about the dramatization of Gabriel Conroy. John T. Raymond had not agreed to Harte’s terms for the play, and another actor had pocketed Harte’s first play without performing it: