1 Clemens replied to the following note from Miller (CU-MARK):

William Hepworth Dixon (1821–79) wrote on historical and political subjects, and was the former editor of the Athenaeum (1853–69); for William Gorman Wills, see 6 July 73 to Fairbanks, n. 6. Clemens would be in Stratford on Tuesday, 8 July. He had evidently written to Miller at the Hardy mansion in North Bank, where he was a houseguest, but Miller had been “down town,” in his rooms at 11 Museum Street. Only one of the two letters is known to survive (1 and 2 July 73 to Miller). Frederick Locker (1821–95), later Locker-Lampson, published his first book of verse, London Lyrics, in 1857, and an anthology of “vers de société and vers d’occasion” by several authors, entitled Lyra Elegantiarum, in 1867. The work containing “selections” from Locker, Tennyson, and Browning has not been identified; Clemens did, however, acquire a copy of an 1872 edition of London Lyrics (Gribben, 1:415). On 6 July Miller wrote to Locker: “You see Clemens happens also to be engaged on Tuesday; so we will drop in for you some other day and take our chances on finding you in. I enclose his letter which you may keep for your collection of letters if you like” (CtY-BR). Clemens’s 5 July letter was preserved until recently in the Locker-Lampson Papers at the East Sussex Record Office in Lewes. (Frederick Locker was Arthur Locker’s older brother: see 17 Sept 72 to Locker.)

2 Mary Anne Hardy (1825?–91), the wife of Thomas Duffus Hardy (see 6 July 73 to Fairbanks, n. 15), had written several novels, the most recent being A Woman’s Triumph (1872) (for Clemens’s description of her, see the next letter; BBA, s.v. “Hardy, Lady Duffus”). In a letter to her mother also written on Saturday, 5 July, Olivia remarked, “I have just rec’d such an urgent pleasant note from Lady Hardy to spend the evening with them that we shall go there for an hour—you remember I wrote you about our being there before—They always receive Saturday evening—” (CtHMTH; neither Lady Hardy’s invitation nor Olivia’s previous letter to her mother is known to survive).

3 Miller’s notoriously illegible handwriting is evident in his 4 July letter, reproduced on the next two pages. Miller allegedly “had an alibi for his wretched scribbling. It was caused by the terrible wound he had received on the right wrist, after he had been pinked by an arrow in one of his numerous battles against the Indians” (Marberry 1953, 124).