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)

October 9, 1905 Monday

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October 9 Monday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote two letters to Frederick A. Duneka of Harper’s.

The easiest way for me to furnish the details you ask for . . . is handy for you too; for you can at your pleasure talk the details to any journalist that come to you or print my letter on slips & hand them to as many of the boys as will accept . . .

…As to other matters here are the details.

Yes, I have tried a number of summer homes, here & in Europe together.

October 10, 1905 Tuesday

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October 10 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Today Mr. Clemens and Jean lunched with the Catlins—but before Mr. Clemens went away I played all his favorites on the Aeolion, and the Largo I played four times. The Aeolion is going away today and the voice—one of the voices of Dublin will go too. This wonderful summer is sighing so gently away. It has been the Queen of all my summers. Today Mr. Clemens said that as a masseur refreshes the body, so the Aeolion is his spiritual massage—it soothes and rests him.

October 11, 1905 Wednesday

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October 11 Wednesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara in N.Y.C.

Clara, you little rascal, sometimes I have regretted that we took a house so far down, but how lucky it was! It would too bad for you to have to travel from the Central Park region clear down to 12th street. I am very glad we have the Musical Institute at our elbow. I hope you are at home by this time, snug & comfortable & happy./ With great love & a kiss / Father [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Muriel M. Pears in Scotland.

October 13, 1905 Friday

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October 13 Friday – United Cigar Stores Co. in the Flatiron building, N.Y.C. wrote asking for permission to use Sam’s letter endorsing the La Tunita cigars. On or just after this day Isabel V. Lyon responded for Sam: “Mr. Clemens would like to do so—but the request comes so frequently that he has had to decline them all” [MTP].

October 14, 1905 Saturday

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October 14 Saturday – Thomas S. Barbour, of the Congo Reform Assoc., Boston, wrote to Sam, asking for a “few minutes at your place of entertainment” the following week when Sam planned to be in Boston [MTP]. Notes: MTP gives “on or after 14 October” for Lyon’s response for Sam. Oct. 14 is reasonable for a post to reach Dublin from Boston. The response: “Perhaps it would be better to call up Mr. Clemens at Pearmains address private”. Sumner Bass Pearmain and Alice Whittemore Upton Pearmain were active in Boston society, educational and social work.

October 16, 1905 Monday

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October 16 Monday – Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Ambrose Lee, acknowledging his letter of Oct. 13. Lyon’s response is not extant but is referred to in Lee’s Oct. 18 to Sam [MTP].

Clemens also wrote to the Congo Reform Assoc. in Boston, the letter not extant but referred to in Tyler’s Oct. 17 reply.

October 17, 1905 Tuesday

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October 17 Tuesday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister in London about the passing of Henry Irving: “All our people mourn him. He earned their love & esteem at his first coming & never lost it. He was endeared to me by a warm friendship of thirty-three years” [MTP]. Note: Sam also ordered a wreath sent to Irving’s funeral [Clara’s enclosure in Oct. 19 to MacAlister].

October 19, 1905 Thursday

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October 19 Thursday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister. Sam enclosed two letters, he’d received from Katy Leary (Oct. 18) and a partial letter from daughter Clara.

It was most kind & thoughtful of you, & if Clara were here she would thank you, as I do—as you will see by the scrap from her letter enclosed. When your first telegram came I had already telegraphed Col. Harvey & Howells to send cables & include me. That is why I did not send a sentiment until you asked for it.

October 20, 1905 Friday

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October 20 Friday – In Dublin, N.H. Sam wrote to daughter Clara.

Clarchen dear, I wish to learn to make the right & just allowance for Jean, & to try to keep constantly in mind that she is heavily afflicted by that unearned, undeserved & hellish disease, & is not strictly responsible for her disposition & her acts when she is under its influence (if there is ever a time when she is really free from its influence—which is doubtful). She has had 2 attacks to-day.

October 21, 1905 Saturday

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October 21 Saturday – As planned (see Oct. 15 and Oct. 20 to Clara; Oct. 19 to MacAlister), Sam went to stay with the Pearmain’s Back Bay, 388 Bacon St., Boston. He was telegraphed there on Oct. 25 by Miller Reese Hutchinson [MTP].

October 22, 1905 Sunday

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October 22 Sunday – Sometime during Sam’s stay in Boston, he conferred with Dr. Haley; Thomas S. Barbour of the Congo Reform Assoc. (Sam was an “honorary” Vice President) wrote on Nov. 23 that he hoped Sam had a good talk with Dr. Haley, and was sorry he could not join them.

October 23, 1905 Monday

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October 23 Monday – During his stay at Pearmain’s Boston home, Sam met a young Liberian, Dihdwo Twe, a sophomore at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Mass. Twe had been in the Congo before coming to the U.S. He would correspond with Twain into 1906 [Hawkins 170].

Isabel Lyon’s journal # 2: “Sent MS of ‘Eve’s Diary’ to Mr. Clemens in Boston” [MTP TS 32].

October 24, 1905 Tuesday

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October 24 Tuesday – Miller Reese Hutchinson sent a telegram to Sam, now at the Pearmain’s house, 388 Beacon Street, Boston : “When can you supply theatrical sketch as per letter of eleventh please answer my expense” [MTP]. Note: this Back Bay address was recently listed for sale as a multi-family house with twelve bedrooms and nine baths with nearly 11,000 square feet, built in 1900.

Isabel Lyon’s Journal # 2: “Guest of College Club in Boston, 4. P.M.” [MTP TS 32].

October 25, 1905 Wednesday

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October 25 Wednesday – In Boston, Mass. Sam wrote and directed Isabel V. Lyon to answer Miller Reese Hutchison’s Oct. 24 telegram: “Dear Miss Lyon— / Please write him I am not able to undertake it.” [MTP].

Sam also wrote Miss Lyon to deposit $200 for daughter Clara, and that he would return to N.Y.C. the next day, expecting to be there “only a few days” [MTP].

October 26, 1905 Thursday

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October 26 Thursday – The New York Times, p.1 “These are for Ivins” reported Mark Twain and 26 other notable gentlement who had “signified their intention of working for the election of Mr. Ivins”—William M. Ivins, Sr. (1851-1915), Republican candidate for mayor. Ivins ran third in the mayoral election of 1905, behind George B. McClellan, Jr. and William Randolph Hearst. Note: the Times of Oct. 22, 1905 ran a feature article on Ivins, “A Man of Many Facets.” George B. McClellan, Jr. (1865-1940), NYC Mayor (1904-1909).

October 27, 1905 Friday

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October 27 Friday – At 388 Beacon St., Boston, Mass., Sam inscribed his portrait to Thomas Bailey Aldrich: “Tom Bailey Aldrich, / with the love of / Mark Twain” [MTP]. Note: Aldrich had written on the portrait, “ ‘The whole quire hold their hips, and laffe.’ ” / A Midsummer Night’s Dream. / The whole quire means all the world. / T.B. Aldrich.”

Sam also wrote to Thomas S. Barbour, of the American branch of the Congo Reform Assoc.

October 31, 1905 Tuesday

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October 31 Tuesday – At the Pearmain’s house, 388 Beacon St., Boston, Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka: “I was interrupted, & didn’t half read the proof of the Horse’s Tale. Will you have it done carefully? Jean goes to New York to-morrow from Dublin—I follow in a few days” [MTP]

November 1905

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November – A formal invitation was sent out to be George B. Harvey’s guest at the celebration of Mr. Clemens’ Seventieth Birthday, Delmonico’s on Tuesday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m. One such letter went to Louise C. Moulton [MTP].

Sam also wrote to the Oppenheimer Institute.

November 1, 1905 Wednesday

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November 1 Wednesday – Back at the Pearmain’s house, 388 Beacon Street in Boston, Mass., Sam wrote to daughters Clara and Jean.

Dear Children, No, it’s for Jean to do, because she knows the Pearmains, & Clara doesn’t. Write Mrs. Pearmain a letter, Jean, & thank her for this house’s hospitalities to me. I have known many hosts in my time, but the Pearmains are the only perfect hosts I have known.

November 2, 1905 Thursday

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November 2 Thursday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Mr. Clemens is staying on at the Pearmains’ and he is going to visit the Aldriches too. / I’m beginning my search for rooms” [MTP TS 109]. Note: Trombley points out that Clara insisted Miss Lyon live out of the house, as had been the arrangement when Livy was alive, so that this search for rooms was Lyon’s attempt to find herself housing [MTOW 84]. See excerpt from this source under Nov. 1.