Day By Day Dates

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)

August 4, 1873 Monday 

August 4 Monday – Sam wrote from Edinburgh to Edmund H. Yates of the New York Herald objecting to an offensive insertion made into Sam’s Shah letter published July 1. Yates had been at Ostend; was in London on Aug. 2, and then went to Vienna [MTL 5: 430].

August 5, 1873 Tuesday

August 5 Tuesday – Reginald Cholmondeley wrote to Sam: “I shall be happy to see you & Mrs Clemens at the end of August or beginning of September with your little girl & I will ask Tom Hughes & his wife to meet you” [MTP]. Note: This labeled Aug. 6 but date is written over; could be either.

August 11, 1873 Monday

August 11 Monday – From Livy’s diary:

“It is real hard to have the exchange so heavy—think of taking $3000 and only having $2500 when you get here—If I was sure our house would not exceed $20 or $25,000 I would spend more here, because we shall want the things when we get into our new house” [Salsbury 23].

August 15, 1873 Friday

August 15 Friday – Livy wrote her mother of travel plans, which were changed in another letter written this day to Jane Clemens and Pamela Moffett. Livy then wrote they would stay in Edinburgh until “next week when we shall go to Glasgow for a day or two and then sail for Ireland where we shall be for about two weeks and then back to London.” No letters from Sam between Aug. 4 and Sept.

August 24, 1873 Sunday

August 24 Sunday – Livy wrote to Susan Crane that they were leaving Edinburgh the next day. “we do so regret leaving Dr. Brown and his sister, thinking that we shall probably never see them again” [MTL 5: 431-2]. From Livy’s diary of Aug. 31:

August 28, 1873 Thursday

August 28 Thursday – Sam and party left Glasgow for Belfast, Ireland, experiencing a rough ferry boat ride where everyone except Sam got seasick. The family reached Belfast about 8 PM and took dinner with Francis Dalzell Finlay (1832?-1917), son-in-law to Alexander Russel [MTL 5: 432]. Finlay was the owner of The Northern Whig until 1875. According to his son, in a letter printed in the Oct.

August 30, 1873 Saturday

August 30 Saturday – In BelfastFrank Finlay inscribed Prize Essays on “Billiards as an Amusement for all Classes,” James Galt & Co. (1873) to Sam [Gribben 561]. Finlay also inscribed editor Charles Rogers’ The Centenary Garland [etc.,] to Livy [585]. Thus the Clemens family must have spent the nights of Aug. 28, 29 and 30 in Belfast.

September 2, 1873 Tuesday

September 2 Tuesday – The first boxed set of “Authors” card game with Mark Twain included was patented by West & Lee Co. of Worcester, Mass. [eBay Nov. 11, 2009 Item # 320446989875]. Note: several items listed about Mark Twain on the back of the card postdate the patent date.

September 5? To 8, 1873 Monday

September 5? To 8 Monday – The Clemens party took a ferry across the Irish Sea to Liverpool, and then traveled south to Chester some twenty miles. From Chester they went further south another thirty-five miles to Shrewsbury, where they were the guests of Reginald Cholmondeley (1826-1896) at Condover Hall. Sam wrote an account of Cholmondeley’s invitation. Sam used the name “Bascom” in Ch.

September 20, 1873 Saturday

September 20 Saturday – Dr. John Brown sent a small printed folder with two poems, no letter [MTP].

The closed. New York Stock Exchange It would stay closed for ten days. This began the Great Depression of 1873, the longest in US history; it  lasted through the spring of 1879 and caught Sam in a financial bind when his NY bank, Henry Clews & Co. froze funds.

September 21, 1873 Sunday

September 21 Sunday – In London, Sam wrote to his mother, Jane Clemens and family all about sealskin coats he’d obtained or ordered for Jane Clemens, Pamela Moffett, and Charles Langdon. Sam boasted of saving about fifteen or twenty dollars each by buying wholesale through an “old friend.” He added:

September 23, 1873 Tuesday

September 23 Tuesday – Sam wrote a short query to the editor of PunchCharles William Shirley Brooks (1816-1874), and asked if he might send a short article [MTL 5: 442]. Note: Sam’s note has been surmised by the MTP as relating to the unpublished “About a Visit to the Doré Gallery in London” [MTL 5: 442n1]. Brooks’ response, if any, is not extant; nor did any Twain article appear in Punch.

September 24, 1873 Wednesday

September 24 Wednesday  In the evening after the theater, Sam and Livy learned of the suspension of funds at their New York bank, Henry Clews & Co.  [Willis 85]. It wasn’t until early Jan. 1874 that the bank was able to resume business and pay all obligations in full. In 1886, however, Sam continued to believe that Clews had cheated him out of money [MTL 5: 441n3].

September 27, 1873 Saturday

September 27 Saturday – Sam and Livy revisited the Brighton Aquarium. Sam had a head cold. Both Livy and Sam were anxious about getting money from their New York bank, Henry Clews & Co. Sam suggested borrowing from Routledge & Sons [MTL 5: 443-4n1].