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)

December 22, 1908 Tuesday

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December 22 Tuesday – Mansfield Hobbs, an attorney friend of Ralph W. Ashcroft filed incorporation papers for the Mark Twain Company, with $5,000 in capital stock. Clemens, Ashcroft, and Isabel Lyon were the original officers. Sam signed a document assigning and transferring all of his literary rights to the new corporation.

Day By Day Volume IV - 1909

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“Is Shakespeare Dead?”– Stormfield $1 Tax – Clara vs. Isabel
Lyon Breaks Down – Clara’s Affair – Carnegie Dinner – Ashcroft Weds Lyon
“Lobster Pot” Boils – H.H.’s Railway – Who Fired Horace? – Lyon Sacked
St. Timothy’s – Ashcroft-Lyon MS – H.H. Rogers Dies – Lost Footnote
Twain Sues Mrs. Ashcroft – “Tobacco” Heart – Amicable Settlement
 Ossip Weds Clara – Jean Comes Home – Bermuda with Paine
“Jean is a surprise & a wonder” – Jean dies: “I always envy the dead”

January 1, 1909 Friday

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January 1 Friday – In Redding, Conn., Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to the Dec. 28, 1908 from Clara Frazer in Withers Mill, Mo.

Dear Miss Frazer: / Mr. Clemens asks me to write for him & say certainly you may have that photograph copyrighted, & then used on post cards.

It is such a pretty little photograph that when the cards are printed, Mr Clemens hopes to have some of them.

January 2, 1909 Saturday

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January 2 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a postcard to daughter Jean. “Happy New Year, Jean dear! And I hope you will have many more. / Affectionately” … [MTP].

Sam also wrote a postcard with a photograph of Stormfield to Dorothy Quick. Happy New Year! Jan. 2’09

It is a very nice poem, Dorothy dear; that is my opinion, & Miss Lyon’s, too.

January 4, 1909 Monday

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January 4 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to the Telephone Operators.

To the Young Ladies of the Telephone Office:

I have received your kind & welcome notes, & I thank you for them, & wish you a happy New year, with many & many others to follow.

Your obliged & appreciative friend Mark Twain  [MTP]. Note: Sam sent each operator a box of candy.

Sam also wrote on The Educational Theatre for Children letterhead, to an unidentified man.

January 5, 1909 Tuesday

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January 5 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a three-paragraph letter (again on the Children’s Theatre letterhead) to an unidentified  person, inviting to a course of lectures at the Lyceum Theatre [MTP: Cordelia and Tom Platt catalogs, Nov. 1993, Item 1F]. Note: like the Jan. 4 letter this and likely several others were sent out to promote “the dramatic instinct in education.”

January 7, 1909 Thursday

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January 7 Thursday – Sam’s new guestbook:           

Name Address Date Remarks

H.W. Dearborn [signed]    [New York]  Jan. 7

Ragnvald Blix began a letter to Sam that he finished Jan. 21 [MTP]. Note: not found at MTP.

January 8, 1909 Friday

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January 8 Friday – John Albert Macy brought galleys of Some Acrostic Signatures of Francis Bacon, etc. (1909) by William Stone Booth (1864-1926) . Sam then wrote the first pages of “Is Shakespeare Dead?”  Sam thereby became convinced that “Booth, had demonstrated, beyond any doubt or question, that the Bacon signatures were there” (in Shakespeare’s works) [Gribben 77; MTB 1479, 1485-6].

Sam’s new guestbook:  

Name Address Date Remarks

Annie S. Macy

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