The first two chapters of A Foregone Conclusion, Howells’s third novel, appeared in the Atlantic Monthly for July 1874. The story won early praise: the Hartford Courant, for example, liked the “warm Italian atmosphere” and the “disenchanting American characters,” and particularly admired “a certain restrained humor in the writer, who lets us see his own amusement and sympathy with his characters” (“The July Magazines,” 19 June 74, 2). The book version was published on 28 November, to coincide with the last serial installment, which appeared in the Atlantic for December. It was a critical success and sold well (Howells: 1874; 1874–75; 1979 [bib01004], 77, 85; BAL , 4:9568).

Howells replied:

(CU-MARK; Howells’s letters to Clemens are included in this edition courtesy of W. W. Howells.) John Mead Howells, Howells’s son, would be six years old in August. Howells was en route to visit his father, William Cooper Howells (1807–94), a former Ohio printer, antislavery newspaper publisher and editor, and state senator, who had been appointed American consul in Quebec on 2 June 1874. The “gay appearance” of the letterhead included a small lithograph of the Memphremagog House (Cady, 5–7, 13–37, 45; U.S. Department of State, 24; Howells 1979 [bib00431], 297, 462).