Day by Day entries are from Mark Twain, Day By Day, four volumes of books compiled by David Fears and made available on-line by the Center for Mark Twain Studies.  The entries presented here are from conversions of the PDFs provided by the Center for Mark Twain Studies and are subject to the vagaries of that process.    The PDFs, themselves, have problems with formatting and some difficulties with indexing for searching.  These are the inevitable problems resulting from converting a printed book into PDFs.  Consequently, what is provided here are copies of copies.  

I have made attempts at providing a time-line for Twain's Geography and have been dissatisfied with the results.  Fears' work provides a comprehensive solution to that problem.  Each entry from the books is titled with the full date of the entry, solving a major problem I have with the On-line site - what year is the entry for.  The entries are certainly not perfect reproductions from Fears' books, however.  Converting PDFs to text frequently results in characters, and sometimes entire sections of text,  relocating.  In the later case I have tried to amend the problem where it occurs but more often than not the relocated characters are simply omitted.  Also, I cannot vouch for the paragraph structure.  Correcting these problems would require access to the printed copies of Fears' books.  Alas, but this is beyond my reach.

This page allows the reader to search for entries based on a range of dates.  The entries are also accessible from each of the primary sections (Epochs, Episodes and Chapters) of Twain's Geography.  

Entry Date (field_entry_date)

Addenda & Errata For Volume II (1886-1896)

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Note: Additions and corrections since the print run in April, 2009. New material and corrections of old material are ongoing. This work is never “finished.” I wish to provide up to date information with each book sold. Up to the minute updates may now be found online, at http://marktwaindaybyday.webs.com/

Spelling correction throughout: – Katharine I. Harrison, not “Katherine.”

November 1879

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November  Sam sent a correspondence card to an unidentified person with this maxim, altering “the great & good Franklin”:

“Never put off till tomorrow what can be put off till day after tomorrow just as well” [MTLE 4: 123].

November to December 15, 1879 – Clemens wrote to unidentified. Cue: “I consider it slander…”; not found at MTP though catalogued as UCCL 13217.

March 4, 1878 Monday

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March 4 MondayDan Slote for Slote, Woodman & Co. wrote . “I send you today more signatures of new Book, all that our printer had completed thus far. / Our Mr Wilde leaves on the 23rd of this month & if that little affair takes place it will occur say two or three nights previous—Can you come & what notice do you need?” He suggested a second volume of Sketches [MTP].

January 30, 1878 Wednesday

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January 30 WednesdayT.C. Marsh, cigar merchant, Cambridge, Ohio, wrote to ask if he might use Twain’s picture cut in his advertisements. He enclosed two small flyers on green paper done for the “Nasby” Cigar, showing his intent [MTP].

January 26, 1878 Saturday

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January 26 Saturday – Sam gave a speech at the Geselischaft Harmonic in New York City. The text is not available [Schmidt]. Note: see Jan. 18 & 19 from Edward Lauterbach.

The New York Sun ran a comic piece correcting its Jan. 7 article. The new piece was titled, “Not Quite an Editor / The Story of Mark Twain’s Connection with the HARTFORD COURANT[Budd, “Interviews” 1].

Volume III Index

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 Index

The index is organized alphabetically, not chronologically. The following have not been indexed: fictional characters, most newspaper articles and subheadings, every subjects of every letter, whether paraphrased, summarized, or quoted.

Works Cited: Volumes I, II, III combined

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Ahluwalia, Harsharan Singh. “Mark Twain in India.” Mark Twain Journal. 34.1 (1996): all.

Albin, Craig. “Luck.” Mark Twain Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993.

Allingham, Philip V. “Mark Twain in Winnipeg, Manitoba: July 26-28, 1895.” Mark Twain Journal 36.2 (1998): 2-12.

Abshire, Janet L. “Snodgrass, Thomas Jefferson.” The Mark Twain Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993: 694.

January 5, 1890 Sunday

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January 5 Sunday – The New York Times, p.11 ran a long description of the life and biography of ex-senator from New York, Roscoe Conkling (1829-1888). Conkling’s biography was published by Webster & Co. Interestingly, Conkling and Sam had both opposed the 1876 candidacy of James G. Blaine.

The Charleston, S.C. Sunday News, p.5 under “New Books” praised CY:

1835 - 1839

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Births of Margaret, Benjamin, Pleasant and Samuel Clemens – Move from Tennessee to
Florida, Missouri – Financial Panic and Hard Times – Henry Clemens Born
Sister Margaret Died – John Marshall Clemens Became Judge – Moved to Hannibal Sammy
Survived Infancy

November  30, 1835 Monday

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November  30 Monday – Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) was born two months  premature in the hamlet of Florida, Missouri to John Marshall Clemens (1798-1847) and Jane Lampton Clemens (1803-1890). The baby was named Samuel, for  John’s father; Langhorne, for the friend of John  Marshall’s who had helped him in his youth in Virginia.

May 21, 1836

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May  21 Saturday – John Marshall Clemens purchased a somewhat larger house on the south side of Main Street in Florida, Missouri for $1,050 from Sam’s grandfather, Benjamin Lampton (1770-1837), who had occupied the house and moved to the country [Wecter 46].

February 1837

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February – Big plans were afloat for developing the area. The Missouri Legislature appointed John Marshall to head a commission of six members to promote a Florida & Paris railroad. The same Legislature also encouraged John Marshall, together with John Adams Quarles (1802-1876), Dr. Hugh Meredith and others to found a school to be called The Florida Academy [Varble 125]. An educational foundation was set up with Marshall and Quarles as trustees.

May 10, 1837 Wednesday

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The early part of the decade saw an inflationary boom, which led to The Panic of 1837. The crisisoccurred when every bank stopped payment in specie (gold and silver coinage). The West was badly hit by the panic, and would not recover for four or five years. The Clemens family would struggle financially for years, in part due to this panic.

November 6 Monday 1837

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John Marshall Clemens was sworn in as a judge of the Monroe County court. Wecter calls this the “zenith of his professional life and one that fixed upon him ever after the title of ‘Judge’” [Wecter 48]. He received two dollars a day while the court met [49]. John had trained to be a lawyer and was very exacting in his work. His letters show the graceful Spenserian script which educated people of the day displayed. Sam got his exacting nature from his father, and his humor and red hair from his mother.

1838 - First Half of Year

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First half of year – The Clemens family moved to their third house in Florida, Mo. Wecter says “probably before the birth of their youngest child, Henry Clemens, on June 13” [Wecter 49]. They sold their second Florida house to John Quarles for a sum that reflected settlement of unpaid debts from the dissolved store partnership [49].

July 13 Friday 1838

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Henry Clemens, the youngest child of John Marshall Clemensand Jane Lampton Clemens was born in Florida, Mo. [MTL 1: 382]. Henry was the model for Sid Sawyer in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a boy upright in every way, not at all like his older brother Sam.

August of 1838

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August ca. – Shortly after Jane Clemens recovered from childbirth, thirteen-year-old Orion was dragged along a picket fence by two oxen. He was saved from death or injury by Jane and a peg leg man who happened to be passing [Varble 127].