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)

October 30, 1899 Monday

October 30 Monday – In London, England, Sam replied to Henry M. Alden, whose incoming letter is possibly that of Oct. 12. Alden had enclosed letters showing good relations between Harpers and Frank Bliss, which gratified Sam. Alden evidently asked for any unpublished work Sam still had; Sam replied that only two short unpublished pieces remained—“Great Republic’s Peanut Stand,” which Alden already had, and two short chapters in Sam’s planned book on Christian Science. Also, The N.Y.

October 31, 1899 Tuesday

October 31 Tuesday – In London, England Sam replied to James B. Pond (incoming not extant):

No, no, write the book yourself—don’t pad it up with made-to-order puffs furnished by other people. No Pears’ soap business. If you are going to enter our profession you must keep up its dignity. Then I’ll wish you great & rich success! [MTP]. Note: Pond’s book, Eccentricities of Genius would be published by G.W. Dillingham Company, N.Y. in 1900.

November 1899

November – Sam’s article about the Hornet wreck, “My Debut as a Literary Person,” ran in the Nov. issue of Century Magazine. It was collected in My Debut as a Literary Person, with Other Essays and Stories (1903) [Budd Collected 2: 1004]. Note: See Feb. 25 entry. See also AMT 1: 127-44 and 501-6.

November 1, 1899 Wednesday

November 1 Wednesday – In London, England Sam replied to Edward Everett Hale’s note of Oct. 11. Hale (1822-1909) was an American author and Unitarian minister; Nathan Hale, Revolutionary hero executed by the British was his great uncle. Edward had written Sam about his article on Christian Science.

I thank you ever so much for your note.

November 3, 1899 Friday

November 3 Friday – In London, Sam wrote to Mrs. Keenan

Your letter has given me very great pleasure, & I wish to thank you for taking the time and trouble to write it.

I had half a notion to put Huck & Tom into the Spanish war, but I was so slow about it that the war was over before I got them in.

November 4, 1899 Saturday

November 4 Saturday – In London, England Sam replied to James M. Tuohy of the N.Y. World, who evidently sent payment for Sam’s “Lie” article. He enclosed the receipt and responded that he didn’t believe he “could write on those subjects—& anyway, I mustn’t; because I must punch myself up & bang along with my regular work” [MTP]. See Oct. 30.

November 7, 1899 Tuesday

November 7 Tuesday – Sam wrote to his sister, Pamela A. Moffett:

It was really very kind of Dr. Steele to invent Osteopathy after Kellgren (the actual inventor of it) had already been curing all kinds of diseases with it when Dr. Steele was in his cradle cutting his teeth.

November 8, 1899 Wednesday

November 8 Wednesday – In London, England Sam wrote to Dr. Sullivan, declining “an almost unresistable temptation” to appear at a club function, for he was a “bond slave to Fitzgerald’s Omar”. He didn’t want his name to appear in the papers while he was “doing the hermit act.” He thanked Mr. Walker for the invitation and Sullivan for conveying it. He also mentioned Livy, his family, and Dr. Jonas Henrick Kellgren:

November 10, 1899 Friday

Before November 10 Friday – In London, England Sam wrote two notes to Poultney Bigelow. The first agreeing to walk at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 10. The second a P.S. “Too bad! Clara is to perform with [Blanche] Marchesi  Friday eve the 10th. I had forgotten it. I’ve got to be there” [MTP].

November 10 Friday – In London, England Sam replied to H.F. Gordon Forbes, whose incoming letter is not extant, but the subject was politics and the Boer War:

November 11, 1899 Saturday

November 11 Saturday – In London, England Sam replied to E. Duncan Lucas that he’d forgotten “what the project was,” but if Lucas would call between 4 and 4:30 nearly any day he would see. Sam provided Chatto’s address and warned: “Show this card, or Chatto will tell you I have gone to the continent—& it will not be true” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to an unidentified man and used his Wellington Court address.

November 12, 1899 Sunday

November 12 Sunday – In London, England Sam wrote to Miss Eva L. Farrell, niece of Robert G. Ingersoll, who died July 21 of congestive heart failure.

“Except for my daughter’s, I have not grieved for any death as I have grieved for his. His was a great & beautiful spirit, he was a man—all man, from his crown to his foot-soles. My reverence for him was deep & genuine; I prized his affection for me, & returned it with usury” [MTP].

November 13, 1899 Monday

November 13 Monday – Sam wrote an aphorism on a card that was later pasted on the flyleaf of RI: “Let us save the to-morrows for work. Truly Yours, Mark Twain, London, Nov. 13/99” [MTP: City Auction catalogs, Feb. 28, 1942, Item 56].

November 16, 1899 Thursday

November 16 ThursdayEva A. Spiridon (Mrs. Ignace Spiridon) wrote from Monte Carlo to reply to Livy’s questions about the portraits they did of the Clemens girls, which the Spiridon’s had already sent to Paris Exposition. “After the Exposition they will be sent to America and I shall write you before we send them in time so you can give your orders” [MTP].

November 17, 1899 Friday

November 17 Friday – In London, England Sam replied to H.H. Rogers (incoming not extant but before his mother’s death on Nov. 9), asking that their money be put “into a safe thing which stands to rise in value.” Sam agreed with a suggestion (not specified) by Rogers about the Mt. Morris Bank. Unaware she had passed away on Nov. 9, Sam wrote he was glad Rogers’ mother was “up & about again.” He took another jab at Clarence C. Rice:

November 18, 1899 Saturday

Before November 18 – Sam wrote to his sister Pamela A. Moffett, who then conveyed his news to her son, Sam’s nephew, Samuel E. Moffett on Nov. 18. Sam thought that osteopathy in America was a theft—it had been invented in Europe nearly 40 years before, but he was glad they had the science now for they would spread it around, while in conservative England an osteopath was seen as a quack.

November 24, 1899 Friday

November 24 Friday – In London, England Sam wrote to John Y. MacAlister to ask if a reference in the newly issued Life and Letters of Sir John Millais denoted Kellgren’s system. Could he find out?  [MTP]. See also Nov. 10 entry and Gribben p. 467 under Millais.

November 28, 1899 Tuesday

November 28 TuesdayIn London, England Sam inscribed a copy of The Mississippi Pilot:To J. Prince Sheldon: “Hoping this will not be the last time I shall have the pleasure of meeting Professor Sheldon.  Mark Twain Nov. 28, 1899” [MTP: John Windle catalogs, 1991, Item 100].

November 29, 1899 Wednesday

November 29 WednesdayThomas Wardle Swainsley inscribed identically 2 volumes of Izaak Walton’s (1593-1683) Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Richd Hooker, George Herbert, &c. Ed. by H.A. Dobson (facsimile editon 1898): “To Mr. and Mrs. Clemens / A little souvenir of a short visit to Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton’s country, Beresford dale, the Dove and Manyfold from / Thomas / Wardle / Swainsley / November 29th 1899” [Gribben 740].

November 30, 1899 Thursday

November 30 ThursdayLondon. Sam’s 64th Birthday.

Sam wrote to Frank Bliss:

“Dear Bliss: / Please send me, care Chatto, a copy of ‘Following the Equator.’

“How does the Harper assignment affect you—to your injury, or otherwise” [David Brass Rare Books; online Oct. 3, 2009; MTPO]