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)

March 21, 1906 Wednesday

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March 21 Wednesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Jean to Lakewood.

C.C. & I went to see Otis Skinner in The Duel & a finer bit of unconscious sarcasm of stage traditions I’ve never seen. We were stunned into silence by Fay Davis’s inability to make one good or natural thing, but that inability was the saving of the play from hopeless mediocrity, & the placing of it was among the finest productions of the winter for old fashioned acting. It was glorious & we were convulsed, where everyone else was overcome by emotion—to tears [MTP TS 55].

March 22, 1906 Thursday

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March 22 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, Isabel V. Lyon wrote notes for Sam to answer Elisabeth Cutting.  “Mar 22—Think out a date for Reception. The Spanish girl Senorita Marcial will be here about Apr. 2. Would they like to invite Sen Marcial & her chaperon Miss Sanborn to this recep.” [Lyon:] “Mention this as M . Clemens would like to help her along in her work—in any way that comes along” [MTP].

Lyon also wrote the notes to reply to Moses Allen Starr’s Mar. 21 (the answer was sent at John Larkin’s suggestion by Isabel V. Lyon)

March 22-26, 1906 Monday

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March 22-26 Monday – During this period Sam replied to Maude Clement Rice in Sawnee on Delaware, Penn.: “I am glad to have a copy of that letter, & shall also be very glad to sign the photograph—” [MTP]. Note: incoming not extant; possibly a relative of old “Unreliable,” Clement Rice?

March 25, 1906 Sunday

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March 25 Sunday – Sam lunched with Miss  Winifred Holt and had tea with the Howellses [Hill 124].

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Jean 9, 11, 4 (Lakewood, very bad day)

Mr. Clemens hates this house. He calls it “The Valley of the Shadow”.

March 26, 1906 Monday

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March 26 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to John Brown, Jr. (“Jock”).

Dear Mr. Jock: — / With this I am returning the typed letters which you sent. They pleasantly but pathetically bring back the scenes and associations of thirty-three years ago, when Mrs. Clemens and our small Susy and I were comrades of your father in Edinburgh daily, during six weeks, without a break.

March 28, 1906 Wednesday

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March 28 Wednesday – In the a.m. Charlotte Teller Johnson returned to 21 Fifth Ave. and read her play Joan d’Arc to Clemens. It was the beginning of almost daily visits between the two and much correspondence. See Mar. 27 entry.

March 29, 1906 Thursday

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March 29 Thursday – At the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Sam told a story at a benefit for the blind. The New York Times, Mar. 30:

TWAIN AND CHOATE TALK AT MEETING FOR BLIND
———
Humorist Sightless Once—in a Vast German Inn.

HIT AT GHOST, BROKE MIRROR

Mr. Choate Urges Liberal Contributions, Mr. Gilder Writes a Poem and Helen Keller a Letter.

March 30, 1906 Friday

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March 30 Friday – Joe Twichell wrote from Hartford to Sam:

I am ordered on duty—as reader of a Scripture lesson only—at the service named on the enclosed card [not extant], which will be in commemoration of the close of the Civil War.

April 1906

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April – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam inscribed a copy of TS to Norman D. Bassett with an aphorism: “Few things are harder to bear than the annoyance of a good example. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Apl./06 / Norman D. Bassett” [MTP].  

Ellis Parker Butler (1869-1937) inscribed his book Pigs Is Pigs (1906) to Sam dated April 1906 in Flushing New York [Gribben 119].

April 2, 1906 Monday

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April 2 Monday – The New York Times, Apr. 3, p. 9, “Three New Plays at Vassar Benefit,” reported that “Mark Twain was the centre Times of one admiring group in a lower stage box…” at the Hudson Theatre, N.Y.C. The plays: The Mallet’s Masterpiece; The Land of the Free; The Watteau Shepherdess. Fatout offers more detail and some speculation about this event:   That he made a speech is not on record, but he probably said something.

April 3, 1906 Tuesday

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April 3 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Gertrude Natkin at 138 W. 98 St., N.Y.

M . Clemens has asked me to send you these tickets for a box for the evening of the 19 , and to say that he would write you himself, but that these are very very busy days, & when he is not working he is too tired to do anything but rest up for the busy day that comes to-morrow.

April 4, 1906 Wednesday

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April 4 Wednesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Charles J. Langdon in Elmira.

“Was there a Mrs. Lee among the Quaker City’s passengers? I do not recal the name” [MTP]. Note: Mrs. S.G. Lee of Brooklyn was on the excursion [MTL 2: 387].

April 6, 1906 Friday

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April 6 Friday – In N.Y.C. Isabel V. Lyon wrote for Sam to Mary E. Bell: “When Mr. C. came home from the theatre he wrote this sentence hoping it might be made useful among her other testimonials Re—Mrs. Bell” [MTP]. Note: evidently Bell had performed on stage.

Sam also replied to John Greenall in Leeds, England who had written Mar. 27: 

April 7, 1906 Saturday

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April 7 Saturday – Clara Clemens wrote to her father, the letter not extant but was quoted by Sam in his Apr. 10 letter to William Dean Howells and also in his reply to Clara [MTP]. See entries.

Sam was elected as the “annual guest” of Smith College’s New York Alumnae at a luncheon at the Hotel Astor. The New York Times, Apr. 8, p. 7, reported:

TWAIN AND SIR PURDON LAUD SMITH GRADUATES

Humorist Elected Annual Guest of the College Club Here.
——— ——— ———
GALA DAY AT HOTEL ASTOR

April 9, 1906 Monday

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April 9 Monday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.

When you come by for me at 5 this afternoon won’t you please bring me

1—$500-bank note;
4—100-
10—10- 

& please ask Miss Harrison to draw this $1000 from my balance at the Guaranty Trust. / Yours ever

Miss Lyon doesn’t know about this. SL. Clemens [MTHHR 604-5].

April 10, 1906 Tuesday

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April 10 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote a reply on Edward Everett Hale’s Apr 8. “I had already dismissed the copyright matter from my mind, recognizing that it was too late to accomplish anything with it this year. Therefore I squash my answer to your letter into a simple sentence, to wit:—I haven’t any wish to follow up the copyright matter this year” [MTP].

Sam also replied to the Apr. 8 praise of his A.D. from William Dean Howells:

April 11, 1906 Wednesday

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April 11 Wednesday – Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from the Hotel de France & Choiseul, Paris:

Dear Mark: / I’ve a bit of news which I am sure will interest you, since it is the only happy thing that has befallen this stricken family during the past three years—the engagement of Talbot to a sweet young New England girl, a Miss Eleanor Little. ….

April 12, 1906 Thursday

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April 12 Thursday – In the evening Sam and William Dean Howells visited Maxim Gorky. New York newspapers followed Gorky’s every move, including a p. 2 article from the Apr. 13 Times, “MAXIM GORKY VISITS THE TOMB OF GRANT,” which included the following passage on Mark Twain and W.D. Howells:  

Mark Twain and W. D. Howells called upon Gorky at his apartments in the Hotel Belleclaire last evening. They remained with him for about half an hour discussing literature, and invited him to attend a literary dinner about a fortnight from now. Gorky accepted the invitation.