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 19, 1881 Friday

August 19 Friday – Charles Eliot Norton wrote to Clemens, hoping they would see him before Wednesday, and asking what day he might expect him for the festival [MTP].

John Esten Cooke wrote from Boyce, Va. to thank Clemens for info on Hartford publishing houses, but there wasn’t much to encourage publishing there. Cooke was likely a book agent for he stated that they would do well with Sam’s latest book [MTP].

August 21, 1881 Sunday

August 21 Sunday – Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy that “everything with us goes along about the same.” She also wrote of working on a child’s bust (Jean Clemens?) and asked if she should “have a photo taken of it while it was clay so that alteration can be made?” [MTP].

August 22, 1881 Monday 

August 22 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood. Sam was planning a trip to Boston.

“All right—but before you order a room for me at the Vendôme, I wish you’d ask Howells if Mrs. Howells didn’t mean to let me come to her house in case Mrs. Clemens couldn’t ”[MTP].

Hubbard & Farmer bankers & brokers wrote a notice they’d bought 100 Denver & Rio Grande at 85 for his account [MTP].

August 23, 1881 Tuesday

August 23 Tuesday – Sam wrote a short note from Elmira to Charles Webster, saying he was returning the “tile patterns….They do not happen to be the right ones.” Wasn’t there a “great bound book—a multitude of designs to select from”? [MTP].

August 24, 1881 Wednesday 

August 24 Wednesday – Sam reached “Albany early in the morning, Hartford at noon; Boston at 6 p.m.” (See Aug. 30, Norton). He stayed in Boston and Belmont until Aug. 26, and possibly a day or two more. [MTHL 1: 371n5].

Franklin G. Whitmore wrote from Branford, Conn. to Clemens, advising Sam on various bills and memos Sam had sent for him to review [MTP].

August 25, 1881 Thursday 

August 25 Thursday – Sam wrote in the morning from Boston to Livy about his trip from Elmira.

“I never saw Mr. Slee any more after I went to bed at midnight in the cars. I found, next morning, in Albany, that I could catch the Springfield train by rushing; so I rushed—in a hack—& was the last passenger that joined it.” Sam told of seeing a working man who’d taken the wrong train so Sam paid his fare back on a 2-day ticket.

August 26, 1881 Friday

August 26 Friday – Sam telegraphed from Boston to Charles Webster (“at residence of S.L. Clemens”), probably about the mason and plumber, William & Robert Garvie and James Ahern. Sam wrote on Aug. 12 about problems with the kitchen remodel.

August 27 to 29, 1881 Monday

August 27 to 29 Monday – Sam was possibly in Boston past Aug. 26 a day or two, but by Aug. 30 was back in Elmira [MTHL 1: 371n5]. In an Aug. 31 letter to the Gerhardts, Sam referred to seeing Augustus Saint-Gaudens “two or three days ago” on the train, which would set his return to Aug. 28 or 29 [MTP].

August 31, 1881 Wednesday

August 31 Wednesday – The Clemens family waited in Elmira for most of the work to be completed on their Hartford house. Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about locating Herbert M. Laurence a New York decorator; about a request to secure four acting copies of Hamlet from Samuel French on Nassau Street; and advised to keep back a day’s wages for the workmen.

September 4, 1881 Sunday 

September 4 Sunday – In Elmira Sam wrote two letters to Charles Webster, responding to his letter of Sept. 2. Webster had written that the upper part of the house was finished if the hearths were not changed. Sam responded that yes, the hearths must be changed. “I have written to N.Y. for specimens of tiles to be sent to us here.” Sam had written to the firm of Wm. H.

September 5, 1881 Monday 

September 5 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Josiah G. Holland of Scribner’s, inquiring if he might “simultane” an article he’d sold them to an Australian magazine in Melbourne [MTP]. Note: Holland died on Oct. 12, just five weeks after Sam’s letter.

September 6, 1881 Tuesday

September 6 Tuesday – Sam telegraphed from Elmira to Charles Webster that the terms were satisfactory for a contract Webster was to frame to “suit” himself. Sam added that he would send money this day [MTP]. Note: the nature of the contract is not specified, but may have been with Garvie; see Webster’s of Sept. 9 to Clemens.

September 7, 1881 Wednesday 

September 7 Wednesday – Sam wrote a twelve-page letter from Elmira to Charles Webster, “mostly detailed and intricate instructions” on Kaolatype. The final message was:

“My experience with Slote teaches me that this sort of letter should be destroyed. Therefore, read this till you are sure of its several points, then burn it” [MTBus 168].

September 8, 1881 Thursday 

September 8 Thursday – Felix N. Gerson wrote from Phila. to Sam, enclosing “an English version of Heine’s poem ‘The Lorelei,’ which I undertook to translate after perusing your ‘Tramp Abroad’” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “A poor translation”; the poem enclosed from the Sept. 2 North American

September 9, 1881 Friday 

September 9 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster. He’d just received a telegram from the printers—Prince and the Pauper would be finished on Monday, Sept. 12. Sam asked Webster to take the engravings (for the cover) himself to Boston, call on Osgood and take him to “that fancy foundry…in that portion of Boston called Chelsea.” Osgood was to take charge of the casting and finishing so that Charley could return home to New York.

September 10, 1881 Saturday

September 10 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Franklin Whitmore acknowledging receipt of his telegram on the matter of selling stock; he would follow Whitmore’s lead. Sam affected a cockney accent:

“It as been orrible weather ere, otter then we’ve ever seen it before on the summit of this hill. But we shan’t complain, as long as it isn’t killing the President” [Note: Garfield died Sept. 19].

September 11, 1881 Sunday 

September 11 Sunday – In Belmont, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam:

“That is a famous idea about the Hamlet, and I should like ever so much to see your play when it’s done. Of course, you’ll put it on the stage, and I prophesy a great triumph for it.”

Howells also wrote about Sam’s “very generous willingness” to pay in advance for his “Library of Humor” work. Daughter Winny was still “trying the rest cure” [MTHL 1: 373].

September 12, 1881 Monday

September 12 Monday – Sam went alone to pay his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister, Pamela Moffett, a visit in Fredonia. Livy could not coordinate a nursemaid for the trip. After four hours he stopped in Rochester to rest and spent the night [Sept. 18 Fairbanks letter].

September 15, 1881 Thursday

September 15 Thursday – When Sam left Fredonia his mother accompanied him the three miles to the station at Dunkirk, then returned home. Sam waited at Dunkirk until 3 A.M. for a train to take him the 45 miles to Buffalo, where he stayed overnight at David Gray’s [Sept. 18, 19 letters to Fairbanks, Jane Clemens].