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)

December 9, 1875 Thursday

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December 9 Thursday – J. Ross Browne died in San Francisco, possibly of appendicitis. He was 54 [Browne 407].

John W. Hart wrote to Sam from State Prison awash in over-the-top prose. It all boils down to what Sam wrote on the envelope [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “From the burglar Hart describing the ship.” Hart had sent Sam a model ship made in prison.

December 12, 1875 Sunday 

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December 12 Sunday – Frank D. Finlay wrote from Edinburgh to Sam. “The papers—and they never lie—say that you are coming over in spring. Are you? I shall be so dreadful glad if you are! I am living in Edinburgh until May….I have a spare room , and can put you up: and I have nothing to do, and we could have long ‘cam’ jaws and loaves together” [MTP].

December 15, 1875 Wednesday

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December 15 Wednesday – Moncure Conway wrote from NYC.

My dear Clemens, / I have been doneing my level best to see a day when I could promise myself the great pleasure of visiting you and your wife at Hartford; but only this morning it dawns on me that towards the last of this year—say about 28th–9th, I should be able to stop for a little if you shd be at home. Still I know it is Xmas time, and it may not be convenient, and of course you will let me know if such is the case.

December 16, 1875 Thursday

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December 16 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Moncure Conway, who had written advising that he’d be able to visit Hartford on Dec. 28-29. Conway had been visiting the Howellses in Cambridge. Sam replied: “Good! Give us both days—can’t you do that?” [MTL 6: 599]. Conway came and stayed four days, leaving on Dec. 31 [MTL 6: 600n2].

December 21, 1875 Tuesday

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December 21 Tuesday – Sam gave a reading at Twichell’s Asylum Hill Church, Hartford. The Hartford Courant of Thursday, Dec. 16, 1875, p.1 in an article titled “Christ Church Choir and Mark Twain” reported that Clemens had agreed to give some readings for benevolence on the following Tuesday [MTPO]. (Sam’s letter of Dec. 22 puts this in dispute, so the reading is conjectural.)

December 22, 1875 Wednesday 

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December 22 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon, thanking her for her gift of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Sam had been “confined to the house & in the doctor’s clutches for about 3 weeks….” And that this was his first day out to shop and “selected some birds to send you for our Christmas” [MTL 6: 602].

December 23, 1875 Thursday 

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December 23 Thursday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam: “Andy Hammond (West Point cadet) is coming home Christmas bringing some fellows with him. I have invited him and them to dinner Monday. I don’t know yet that they will come, but if they do I want you to come over—you and Charley Warner—and dine with us also. It will be such a treat to the boys if you can” [MTP].

December 24, 1875 Friday

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December 24 Friday – In New YorkBret Harte wrote to Sam, asking a favor—to use his influence with Elisha Bliss to gain an additional $1,000 advance on his book, Gabriel ConroyHarte reminded Sam of a day when their roles had been reversed, but believed that good times for him were coming.

December 25, 1875 Saturday 

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December 25 Saturday – Christmas – Sam wrote a delightful letter he signed “Santa Claus” to Susy Clemens.

“I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your mother & the nurses, for I am a foreigner & cannot read English well” [MTL 6: 604].

December 26, 1875 Sunday

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December 26 Sunday – John W. Hart wrote from State Prison (“Sarcophogas 14 State Catacomb”) to wish Sam “A most obesely jocund Christmas.” Hart must have swallowed a dictionary, as his prose is a felony [MTP]. Note: Clemens wrote on the env. “From John W. Hart, who made the ship in prison”; a model ship was sent to Clemens.

December 30, 1875 Thursday 

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December 30 Thursday  Sam wrote in a gift copy of Sketches, New and Old, for Moncure Conway:

To Friend Conway: / Who will kindly remember that the billiard-odds lay with him, & Victory with his gratified friend & servant, Mark Twain. Hartford, New Year’s 1876 [MTL 6: 607].

Mark Twain Day By Day: 1876

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The Nation’s Centennial Year
1601 – Started on Huck Finn – Ah Sin & Bret Harte – West Point – Tom Sawyer Praised Skeleton
Stories – Conway as Agent – John Marshall & Henry Disinterred – Sam on Stage Centennial in Philly
– Advice to American Publishing Co. – Hayes & Torchlight Parades Political Speeches – Tauchnitz –
Belford Pirates – Readings in New England
Jabberwock Auctioneer – Crazy Isabella

January 1876

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January – Possibly this month Sam wrote from Hartford to Isaac H. Bromley, who had originated the popular expression, “Punch, brothers! Punch with care!” To Sam’s consternation, the line was often attributed to him. He advised Bromley,

“The next time you write anything like that for God’s sake sign your name to it…” [MTLE 1: 27].

January 1, 1876 Saturday

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January 1 Saturday – in Hartford Sam wrote a postcard to William Dean Howells, asking to write a few articles for the Atlantic in a “new & popular low-comedy vein”—and Sam wrote “scofulous humor” inside of a box [MTLE 1: 28]. Sam’s postcard suggestion for “scrofulous humor” and a pasting of a newspaper clipping is revealed by the following ad, which is typical of many that ran for this product in the Hartford Courant (27 times in 1875) and other papers.

January 2, 1876 Sunday 

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January 2 Sunday – In New YorkBret 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:

January 4, 1876 Tuesday

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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 9, 1876 Sunday 

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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 11, 1876 Tuesday

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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.