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)

September 11, 1875 Saturday

September 11 Saturday – In Chesterfield, N.H., Howells wrote, again complimenting Sam on his “Gondour” piece, saying it moved “that eminent political economist,” Mrs. Howells. He also wrote:

“In comment on Charles Reade’s letters (I wish the man wasn’t such a gas-bag), don’t you wish to air your notions of copyright in the Atlantic?” [MTHL 1: 97-8]. Note: Reade had sent thirteen letters to the London Pall Mall Gazette opining on international copyright issues.

September 12, 1875 Sunday 

September 12 Sunday – Richard M. Milnes (Lord Houghton) wrote from St. Louis: “I recvd to-day your kind note to Niagara & hasten to thank you for it. I go to-night to Cincinnati & expect to arrive in New York about the 24th. …I fear therefore that I have no chance of being able to bring my son to see you.” He remarked about St. Louis being more like a European manufacturing city [MTP]. Note: his handwriting is abysmal, but some brave soul has transcribed it, likely through supernatural means.

September 14, 1875 Tuesday

September 14 Tuesday  In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells about copyright issues. Howells had written about the letters by Charles Reade on the subject printed by the New York Tribune. Sam calculated more might get done with a petition personally carried to Congress. The first copies of Sketches, New and Old were soon to arrive, and Sam related he’d told Bliss to send a copy to Howells before anyone else.

September 17, 1875 Friday

September 17 Friday  In Hartford Sam wrote to Dan De Quille, still at the Union Hall Hotel nearby. Sam liked collecting “queer letters.” He asked Dan to:

“…write Fair, Mackey & O’Brien [Comstock Lode Millionaires], & ask them if they won’t save all the begging letters that come to them & send them to me from time to time” [MTL 6: 535]. NoteJohn William Mackey (Mackay) (1831-1902).

September 18, 1875 Saturday

September 18 Saturday  In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells about the petition to lengthen copyrights. Sam wanted the country to make a stand to European thieves with “Thou shalt not steal.”

“If we only had some God in the country’s laws, instead of being in such a sweat to get Him into the Constitution, it would be better all around.”

September 21, 1875 Tuesday 

September 21 Tuesday – From Prospect House in Chesterfield, N.H., Howells wrote to Sam, saying he would be welcome at his house “in November, or any other month of the year.” After announcing his plans to travel on to Quebec to see his father, Howells wrote:

“Then, please the pigs, I shall stick to Cambridge for one while. I can’t tell you how sick I am of enjoying myself—that’s what it is called” [MTHL 1: 102].

September 22, 1875 Wednesday

September 22 Wednesday  In Hartford Sam wrote to James Redpath, explaining why lecturing would cost him money and interrupt his book (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer).

“I never HAVE lectured without losing a great deal of money by it (no matter what the fee,) & so you can understand my reluctance to meddle with fire that has burnt me so often. And, besides I absolutely loathe lecturing, for its own sake!” [MTL 6: 540].

September 24, 1875 Friday 

September 24 Friday – Phineas T. Barnum wrote two letters to Sam. The first informed that they had changed the date of their Hartford visit to the 29th, and that “the tribe of Barnum will number 6.” The second: “Yours recd—since I mailed a letter to David Clarke for you. We are to be in Hartford Wednesday next as that letter will inform you” [MTP].

October 1875

October  Sam’s unsigned sketch, “The Curious Republic of Gondour,” attacked suffrage and suggested weighted votes based on property and education. The piece ran in the October Atlantic Monthly. Sam sometimes preferred his more serious pieces to be published anonymously, so that readers would not suspect hidden humor connected with his trademark name, Mark Twain.

October 5, 1875 Tuesday

October 5 Tuesday  In Hartford Sam wrote to Jesse Madison Leathers, a distant relative who had inquired about the feasibility of claiming part of the English Durham estate. Citing the cost that the Tichborne claimants spent unsuccessfully, and the 600 plus years the present heirs had held the lands, Sam wrote “It would be too much like taking Gibraltar with blank cartridges” [MTL 6: 545-6].

October 6, 1875 Wednesday 

October 6 Wednesday – Sam and Livy attended “Our Big Wedding,” the marriage of Governor Jewell’s daughter Josephine to Arthur M. Dodge of New YorkJoe Twichell pasted a clipping by that title from the Hartford Courant into his journal. The wedding was at Asylum Hill Congregational [Yale 126]. Andrews gives details:

October 7, 1875 Thursday 

October 7 Thursday  In Hartford Sam wrote to John C. Underwood. Sam identified the “professor” who’d fraudulently solicited funds for a “southern school” as George Vaughan, and asked Underwood to endorse him. Unfortunately, Underwood, a district court judge, was deceased, as was another on Vaughan’s list he showed to Sam [MTL 6: 550].

October 11, 1875 Monday

October 11 Monday  In Hartford Sam replied to the Oct. 9 from James G. Blaine about the fraud, George Vaughan. Sam was now impassioned; the fact that Vaughan had written a “marvelously foul & scurrilous letter to the Courant in reply” set Sam off [MTL 6: 552].

Dr. John Brown wrote from Edinburgh, Scotland: