June 29 Tuesday – Jack Van Nostrand, Quaker City friend, wrote from Manitou, Colo.

June 30 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Dr. Cornelius Agnew, asking if a summer at the seaside for Nell Kinearney would be a good thing. Nell was a neighbor with the diseased eye that doctors had recommended removing [MTL 6: 502]. Note: The Clemenses may have paid some of the medical expenses for the operation done in the fall.

July – Sam inscribed a copy of Queen Mary, A Drama. Author’s Edition (1875): “Saml. L. Clemens, Hartford, July, 1875” [Gribben 695].

July 2 Friday – In Hartford Clemens wrote a check to the Evening Post Association for $4; a subscription [JG Autographs eBay item # 370952848214; February 2014].

July 3 Saturday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam not to “waste it on a boy”—that is, his “chief work,” The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which Howells thought should be carried on into Tom’s adult years [MTHL 1: 90]. Note: even Howells got it wrong now and then.

July 5 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells that he’d finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer but “didn’t take the chap beyond boyhood,” a development that Howells had recommended. Sam doubted that any magazine could pay him enough to publish the book, and used figures Harte had received from Scribner’s for comparison.

July 6 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Mr. Gerard (unknown), referring him to Edward T. Potter Sam’s architect, for pictures and drawings on his Farmington Avenue home [MTL 6: 506].

In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam a short letter about submissions for the Atlantic, a music item, and his sympathies for “poor little Susy,” who evidently was ill [MTHL 1: 94].

July 8 Thursday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam that he’d be unable to visit. Sam’s invitation, probably written on July 6-7, has been lost. The Howellses were going to the country at Shirley Village, Mass. and wouldn’t be home from Aug. 1 till Oct. 1 [MTHL 1: 94].

July 13 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Bret Harte asking for his autograph for a collector friend he’d met in London, Charles E. Tisdall, Chancellor of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Sam wrote Tisdall was “a mighty good fellow—for a Christian” [MTL 6: 507-8].

July 14 Wednesday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to George E. Waring, Jr. (1833-1898), whom he may have met at the Dec. 15, 1874 Atlantic Monthly contributors’ dinner. Waring had called at Sam’s home, but Sam was away. Sam wrote that he and family would be at Bateman’s Point, Newport, Rhode Island on July 31, and hoped to see Waring there [MTL 6: 512].

July 16? Friday – Sam sent the title page of Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old to Elisha Bliss, and asked him to print and mail the page to Washington for copyright [MTL 6: 513]. Duckett gives July 21 as the copyright date [104].

July 19 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Mary F. Foster, sending copies of his books for a library project [MTL 6: 514].

In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam and declined to collaborate on writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as a play:

“But I couldn’t do it, and if I could, it wouldn’t be a favor to dramatize your story. In fact I don’t see how anybody can do that but yourself” [MTHL 1: 96].

July 20 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to James R. Osgood on the William F. Gill matter, that stopping legal action now was perhaps the best result they might obtain. Still,

“It seems a shame that a thief can go on & print 2000 copies of stolen goods & escape punishment through the weakness of the law” [MTL 6: 514].

July 21 Wednesday –Sam submitted a synopsis of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Drama to the Library of Congress for copyright. Norton concludes that since the synopsis includes all of what would make up the published book that the “essential work had been done ten months earlier” [Writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 21].

July 23 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Pamela Moffett. Sam had utter disdain for the temperance activists, who he said blamed the maker of rum and not the drinker of it.

July 26 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Orion, enclosing $82 requested as a loan. Orion was sending monthly detailed accounts of his chicken farm income and expenses and borrowing another $100 each time. Sam eyeballed a $25 expense for the rental of a pew in church and made a point of “principle” in this reply. “You might as well borrow money to sport diamonds with,” Sam admonished [MTL 6: 519].

July 29? Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to James Redpath who had sent “customary annual lecture temptations!” Sam still did not want to lecture—at any price.

“All last winter I sat at home drunk with joy over every storm that howled along, because I knew that some dog of a lecturer was out in it” [MTL 6: 520-1].

July 31 Saturday – The Clemens family left Hartford to vacation at Bateman’s Point near Newport, Rhode Island. They stayed at Ridge Road and Castle Hill Avenue in an old farm on the well-used resort. Dan De Quille, who had been staying in the Union Hall Hotel in Hartford and writing his book with Sam’s help, also accompanied the family and stayed a week.

August – The last of seven installments of “Old Times on the Mississippi” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.

Sam inscribed a copy of Augustus John Hare’s Walks in Rome (1874): Saml. L. Clemens, Bateman’s Point, Newport, R.I, Aug., 1875. [Gribben 293].

August 2 Monday – Sam’s letter of July 29? to Redpath found its way into the Boston Herald, appearing on Monday, Aug. 2 [MTL 6: 530].

August 3 Tuesday – Sam’s short piece “Mark Twain to Stay at Home” ran in the Hartford Courant [Courant.com].

Clara L. Kellogg (1842-1916) wrote from Clarehurst, Hudson River. “I am truly obliged to you, Mr. Clemens, for giving me the desired information. / Through your kindness I am now in possession of two photographs of your charming house” [MTP].

August 9 Monday – Dan De Quille wrote to the Enterprise that Bateman’s point had water on three sides and was foggy and breezy. Sam “is very indolent and after reading about a thousand pages [MS pages] said it was all right—he did not want to read any more” [MTL 6: 521]. Dan left sometime between this day and Aug. 12; he took a steamboat trip to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket [531n1].

August 12 Thursday – Sam and Livy attended a lecture on natural history given by Alexander Agassiz. They’d been invited by pastor and writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson [MTL 6: 522].

Thomas W. Higginson wrote to invite Sam and Livy to the Town and Country function on Saturday [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Col. Higginson”

August, mid – Sam gave a picnic speech at Castle Hill Town and Country Club, Newport, R.I. [Roche 23-27].

August 16 Monday – In Shirley Village, Mass., William Dean Howells sent Sam proofs on “The Curious Republic of Gondour,” which would run anonymously in the Oct. Atlantic Monthly [MTL 6: 523]. “I like Gondour greatly, and wish we could keep your name,” Howells wrote, “Send me some more accounts of the same country” [MTHL 1: 97].