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)

January 12, 1879 Sunday

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January 12 Sunday – the Clemenses loved to entertain, something expected of many Nook Farm residents. according to Twichell’s journal, a dinner was given at Sam’s for Louis Fréchette, Poet Laureate of Canada:

January 13, 1879 Monday

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January 13 Monday – Sam had an unwelcome American visitor who, in effect, was a beggar. the visit, along with a Jan. 4 article from the Hartford Courant, led Sam to write a long letter to the Courant editor on the problem of beggars [MTNJ 2: 260]. (see Feb. 2 entry.)

January 14, 1879 Tuesday

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January 14 Tuesday – the Clemenses saw a Munich production of François Adrien Boieldieu’s La Dame Blanche, a popular light opera, partly based on Sir Walter Scott’s novels The Monastery and Guy Mannering. Sam noted: “not noise, but music” [MTNJ 2: 261].  

January 17, 1879 Friday

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January 17 Friday – William Roling Romoli wrote from his gallery in Florence, Italy to advise that the “two frames you ordered of me the 26th October 1878 are now quite ready to deliver to my expeditioners…to forward to Liverpool according to the directions you left me” [MTP].

January 19, 1879 Sunday

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January 19 Sunday – Livy and Sam wrote from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon. Livy wrote of her homesickness, of spending too much money in Italy, of buying furniture in Florence and of the children. Sam wrote:

January 23, 1879 Thursday

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January 23 Thursday  Sam wrote from Munich to Joe Twichell. He had lost the address for Frank and Elisha Bliss, so asked Joe to communicate with them about the delays in his book. He didn’t want to “attempt any more prophesies as to the date of completion of the book.” Sam had found his lost notebook, and worked daily when no one in the family was sick. He calculated that he’d torn up 400 pages and had about 900 that he liked, so was half done.

January 25, 1879 Saturday 

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January 25 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

The Mother of the King, 55 or 60, was out walking in the street, to-day, a maid of honor walking beside her, the two talking zealously, 2 vast footmen in blue liveries walking behind them—everybody, who came along, either in the street or on the sidewalk, took off hats & bowed—little boys, gentlemen, ladies, soldiers, cabmen—everybody—& the queen saw every bow & bowed in return, & still kept her end of the conversation [MTNJ 2: 263].

January 26, 1879 Sunday

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January 26 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to Joe Twichell after receiving his letter at breakfast (evidently there was Sunday mail delivery in Germany). Sam wrote of not being able to sleep the night before. So he dressed in the dark and then crawled around trying to find a missing sock.

January 30, 1879 Thursday

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January 30 Thursday – Sam wrote from Munich to Howells. He received a letter from Howells in the morning and discovered the two articles (possible chapters for his current book) he’d sent had not been lost in transit.

February 1879

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February  Sam’s article “The Recent Great French Duel” ran in the February issue of the Atlantic Monthly [Wells 22]It also ran in the Hartford CourantJan.

February 2, 1879 Sunday

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February 2 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to the editor of the Hartford  Courant, enclosing a Jan. 11 article of that paper that he’d just received. The article was about tramps who had been jailed in Hartford. Sam was gratified that Hartford had “at last ceased to be the Tramp’s Heaven.” He wrote of the positive Munich experience with beggars after giving them work and denying handouts.

February 7, 1879 Friday

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February 7 Friday –William Roling Romoli wrote from his gallery in Florence to note receipt of Sam’s payment of 235 lire for the gilt Florentine carved frames, and had sent them away as per directions. He did not send the glass for “Three Fates of Michelangelo” since the frames had a long way to go [MTP].

February 9, 1879 Sunday

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February 9 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to Frank Bliss of progress on the book, even though he was still tearing up some of it. He sent Frank an address in Paris where they might go at any time; they planned to return to Elmira next August; to Hartford in October [MTLE 4: 20].

February 13, 1879 Thursday

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February 13 Thursday – Elisha Bliss wrote to Sam. “Occasionally I hear from you through some friend of yours. You seem to have been skipping about like a grass-hopper in haying time.” Bliss had conferred with Perkins about Sam’s business interests. He was unclear as to which book Sam agreed would take the place of the Riley book on diamond mining, this to fulfill his agreement. The sale of Twain’s book through autumn was “quite large” [MTP].

February 23, 1879 Sunday

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February 23 Sunday – Sam wrote at 1:30 pm on a snowy day from Munich to Olivia Lewis Langdon. After describing the snowstorm, Sam wrote that he’d finally picked all ten tunes for his $400 music box. Samuel E. Moffett had been with them for a week or more and Sam Clemens said the “manly boy” had “won the esteem, admiration & affection of the tribe.” His nephew had a:

February 24, 1879 Monday

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February 24 Monday – Sam wrote from Munich a short note to Joe Twichell after receiving his letter. Sam wrote how he discovered the trick to sharpening a razor. They were leaving Thursday. Send mail to Monroe & Co., Bankers in Paris [MTLE 4: 31].

February 27, 1879 Thursday

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February 27 Thursday – The Clemens family left Munich by rail for Paris, France. Sam had planned to leave at 6:40 AM and travel to Strasburg (at that time in Germany) by 5:30 PM and spend the night there, continuing on to Paris on Feb. 28 [MTLE 4: 29]. Sam noted “Feb 27, at Strasburg” in his notebook [2: 292].

February 28, 1879 Friday

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February 28 Friday  The Clemens family arrived in Paris with five trunks and took rooms at the Grand Hotel St. James in the rue Saint-Honoré, where they stayed until Mar. 4 [MTNJ 2: 292n7].

From Sam’s notebook

Feb. 29/79—Arrived at Paris at 5 P.M.

In ungraciousness of stranger to stranger we are exactly like the French—mannerless.