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 9, 1893 Wednesday

August 9 Wednesday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall.

Won’t you have the enclosed brief Romance [“Esquimau Maiden’s Romance”] very very carefully type-written (you carefully correcting it afterward yourself)?

August 1, 1893 Tuesday

August 1 Tuesday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow, author and one of his dinner companions in Berlin. Webster and Co. published two of Bigelow’s books in 1892: The German Emperor and His Eastern Neighbors, and Paddles and Politics Down the Danube. Sam responded to an invitation from Bigelow (not extant) but evidently they were more widely separated by geography than he’d previously thought, so he had to decline as he didn’t want to leave Livy alone overnight.

August 11, 1893 Friday

August 11 Friday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany, Livy wrote to Mary C. Shipman (Mrs. Nathaniel Shipman), and Sam “smuggled” in a paragraph at the end. Livy thanked Mary for a visit from Mary’s children, and had just received a letter from Mary’s older son, Frank Shipman. She thanked her for the letter and regretted they could not have seen more of the children, and remarked how meeting home people abroad did away with “preliminaries.”

August 12, 1893 Saturday

August 12 SaturdayCritic magazine XX, p.111 ran “Stockton on Mark Twain,” an unsigned article [Tenney 21].

Sam’s notebook: “Ordered of Neighbor, Aix-l.-B, 1 evening dress; 1 morning, dark-gray; 1 ½ dress coat. Will tell him where to send them” [NB 33 TS 25].

August 14, 1893 Monday

August 14 Monday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany, Sam wrote William Walter Phelps and entered the fact in his notebook. The letter is not extant:

Aug. 14 Wrote Brer P. shall want him to sit down & talk early-history & let me make notes & ask questions there or in N.Y., I to sail 10 days hence if cholera news does not augment [NB 33 TS 25].

August 15, 1893 Tuesday

August 15 TuesdayChatto & Windus wrote to Sam. The first part of the letter is a record of Sam’s account with the firm; recent sales of all books yielding £734.9.4; an Italian translation of P&P is mentioned, and the firm was on “tip-toe” expecting a new story [MTP].

August 16, 1893 Wednesday

August 16 Wednesday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany, Sam finished his Aug. 14 to Frederick J. Hall:

Aug. 16. I have thought, and thought, but I don’t seem to arrive at any very definite place. Of course you will not have an instant’s safety until the bank debts are paid….I am coming over, just as soon as I can get the family moved and settled. SLC.

August 18, 1893 Friday

August 18 Friday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany Sam wrote to Chatto & Windus, who had sent money. After praising them he advised of his travel plans.

I sail from Bremen in the “Spree” Aug. 29, & shall expect to be gone some little time; but I take one of the daughters [Clara] along for company.

I mailed the new book [PW] to New York Aug. 9, & shall expect it to appear serially. I hope you will admire it when you come to put a back on it in your London bindery [MTP].

August 20, 1893 Sunday

August 20 Sunday – In Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany Sam wrote to Susan Crane.

Sue, dear, we are packing, to leave here tomorrow (Monday), leave Munich Wednesday [Aug 23] morning & arrive at Franzensbad in afternoon.

Clara & I will leave there for Bremen Saturday or Sunday next [Aug. 26 or 27]. We sail Tuesday 29th. We ought to arrive in New York about the 7th September, as the Spree is a good boat.

August 21, 1893 Monday

August 21 Monday – The Clemens family left Krankenheil-Tölz, for Munich [Aug. 20 to Crane]. Sam’s notebook:

We leave Kurhotel, Krankenheil-Tölz, Bavaria, Monday Aug 21, ’93 via Munich for Franzensbad, Bohemia, (Unberufen) after 37 days Aufenthalt [NB 33 TS 29].

August 23, 1893 Wednesday

August 23 Wednesday – The Clemens family left Munich and arrived in Franzensbad, where Susy had been taking therapy and gorging herself, trying to build herself up to meet her voice instructor’s commands. The family stayed at the Kaiserhaus Hotel in Franzensbad [Aug. 20 to Crane; Aug. 28 to Livy].

August 30, 1893 Wednesday

August 30 Wednesday – The Spree stopped in Southampton, on the south coast of England for more passengers [Sept. 2 Times article]. Sam’s notebook:

At Southampton 2.30 p.m. Aug 29 [Aug. 30] about 25 hours out from Bremen. / Consul Kelly, General Agent of the N.D.L. / The widow lady & her sons got off here. Ask for her at Hillman’s Hotel, Bremen, they will find her for us. / Clothes to come by next ship — probably Wm. II [NB 33 TS 30].

September 1893

SeptemberCosmopolitan published Sam’s story, “Is He Living or Is He Dead?”

The Brooklyn Eagle, Sept. 4, 1893, p.4, “Cosmopolitan Magazine” reported on the Sept. issue of the magazine:

The September Cosmopolitan boasts modestly of $6,066 paid by it for papers by ex-President Harrison, William D. Howells and Mark Twain. This is about the average money value probably of 8,000 words, the number in the papers taken together, when so furnished by persons sufficiently famous. …

September 2, 1893 Saturday

September 2 Saturday – In prior trips alone to New York, Sam made efforts to stay anonymous, mostly without success. He was a celebrity and his returns to the States were usually reported in the newspapers. The New York Times, p.5, “New-York and Round About” carried this notice:

— A cablegram received by the North German Lloyd Steamship Company states that among the cabin passengers on the Spree, sailing from Bremen Aug. 29 and Southampton Aug. 30, are Mr. S.L. Clemens. (Mark Twain.)

September 4, 1893 Monday

September 4 Monday – Sam and daughter Clara were at sea on the Spree.

Wolkow & Cornelson, a Hamburg, Germany commercial firm sent a post card to Livy that they’d received a package of tooth powder from New York for her — would she accept it? [MTP].

September 6, 1893 Wednesday

September 6 Wednesday – Sam and daughter Clara were at sea on the Spree. Sam wrote on Sept. 13 to daughter Jean, about Clara’s last night on board:

She had good times on the ship & wasn’t sick, & learned to play a very creditable game of horse-billiards [deck shuffleboard]. She danced till 11 the last night, but took a long afternoon sleep the next afternoon at the Murray Hill to make up for it [MTP].