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)

November 3, 1869 Wednesday

November 3 Wednesday – Sam lectured in Johnstown,  Pennsylvania [MTL 3: 385].

Note: It is possible that Sam did  not speak in Brookville or Johnstown – more newspaper evidence  might confirm. Letters Sam wrote Livy between Nov. 6 and 9 (Livy’s numbers 129-132) are  lost [MTL 3:  391n4].
 

November 7 to 13, 1869 Saturday

November 7 to 13 Saturday – sometime during this week Horatio G. Smith of Boston photographed Clemens with Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) and Petroleum V. Nasby (David Ross Locke) and titled the photo “American Humorists” [MTL 3: 406, 408n10]. The “V” for “Vesuvius.”

November 10, 1869 Wednesday

November 10 Wednesday – Sam lectured to a full house of 2,600 in Music Hall, Boston, Mass. – Sam’s letter of Nov. 9 to his sister was no exaggeration—the Boston lecture was critical to Sam’s continued success on the lecture circuit. Boston was the literary capital of the country, and success there meant easy sledding elsewhere in New England. Sam wrote from Boston to Livy his plans to spend New Year’s Day at home.  

November 11, 1869 Thursday 

November 11 Thursday – Sam lectured at Trinity Church, Charlestown, Mass. [MTPO].

Sam wrote from Boston at midnight:

“…bought full wedding outfit to-day (haven’t got a cent left) & occasionally the packages will arrive by express directed simply to J. Langdon, Elmira. Now your mother must unpack them & put them away for me & be sure not to let Mr. Langdon go wearing them around. I tell you, they are starchy.”

November 1869, mid

November, mid  Sam, visited unannounced the offices of The Atlantic Monthly at 124 Tremont Street in Boston to thank the unsigned reviewer of Innocents Abroad for a very positive review. This is the famous first meeting between William Dean Howells (who wrote the review) and Sam Clemens. Sam first saw James T. Fields, who had hired Howells.

November 15, 1869 Monday 

November 15 Monday  Sam lectured at Clinton Hall, Clinton, Mass.[MTPO].

He began a letter from to Livy that he finished on Nov. 16.

Livy Darling — / I had to submit to the customary & exasperating drive around town in a freezing open buggy this morning [at Norwich] to see the wonders of the village

November 23, 1869 Tuesday 

November 23 Tuesday  Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Allyn Hall, Hartford, Conn. The Hartford Courant (Nov. 25, p2) review summarized both traditional the traditional lecture audience “class” and expectations, and Sam’s unique “conversational” approach which mixed both serious and comedic:

November 27, 1869 Saturday 

November 27 Saturday  Olivia Louise Langdon’s 24th birthday, her last as a single woman. Sam wrote her a short note from Boston: “Had a big house last night, as usual. Didn’t make a brilliant success otherwise, though.” The town has not been identified [MTL 3: 410].

November 28, 1869 Sunday 

November 28 Sunday  Sam wrote from Boston to Livy about her 24th and his 34th birthday:

“I have kept the day alone, my darling—we will keep it together hereafter, God willing. My own birthday comes Tuesday, & I must keep that alone also, but it don’t matter—I’ve had had considerable practice in that” [MTL 3: 413].

November 29, 1869 Monday

November 29 Monday  Sam lectured (“Savages”)  in the Congregational Church, Newtonville, Mass. Though Sam did not like lecturing in churches as he felt it more difficult for the audience to laugh, the Newton Journal however, reported that Sam “elicited shouts of laughter” [MTL 3: 414n2].

Sam wrote from Boston to Livy, sending his schedule [MTL 3: 415].

November 30, 1869 Tuesday

November 30 Tuesday  Sam’s 34th birthday. He lectured (“Savages”) in Thompsonville, Conn.

James Redpath wrote to advise Sam that Mr. Alfred Reed extended his hospitality for the stop in Trenton, and had increased the fee to $100 [MTP].

December 1869

December  William Dean Howells published a very positive review of IA in the Atlantic Monthly:

“It is no business of ours to fix his rank among the humorists California has given us, but we think he is, in an entirely different way from all the others, quite worthy of the company of the best.”

December 1, 1869 Wednesday 

December 1 Wednesday  Sam lectured (“Savages”)  for Brooklyn Library Society, at the Bedford Avenue Reformed Church, Brooklyn, New York. Sam’s lecture schedule allowed him to spend most of Dec. 1 to 6 with Livy in New York City [MTL 3: 428n1].

December 3, 1869 Friday

December 3 Friday  Sam lectured  (“Savages”) in Collingwood’s Opera House, Poughkeepsie, New York.

Sam wrote from Brooklyn, New York to the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, that a “misunderstanding” had resulted in canceling his second Brooklyn lecture [MTL 3: 417].

“The Richardson Murder,” an unsigned article attributed to Sam, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 101].