Banned Book Week

A post by our fantastic new curatorial assistant, Mallory Howard.

In honor of banned book week, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at Mark Twain’s infamously banned novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In the late 1800’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was originally banned because Huck Finn was a “bad boy” who had no morals and bad manners. Mothers certainly didn’t want this example to be set for their children and therefore did not allow the book to be read. It also came under fire for its language, but not the language that we find offensive today. In Concord, MA part of the reason it was banned was because Huck said, “sweat” instead of “perspire.” In more recent years Huck Finn has been banned due to its use of the “n-word,” which shows up consistently throughout the novel. This coarse language is deemed by some to be extremely offensive and results in some schools refusing to teach it or carry it in their libraries. Those who defend the novel argue that too often the language is taken out of context and should not be viewed with 21st century eyes, doing so can indeed cause conflict. However, when studied from a 19th century context, the book coincides exactly with how most people spoke, felt, and thought.

Another criticism of the novel, which has helped in the argument of the books banishment, is the portrayal of Jim, the African-American slave who travels with Huck down the great Mississippi river. Some are upset that Twain depicted Jim as an “unintelligent, jolly, black man,” who seems unable to accomplish much of anything. This is a common misconception people have about the character of Jim. In chapter nine of the book, Jim and Huck encounter a sunken boat with a dead body inside. When Jim takes a closer look he realizes it is Huck’s abusive, alcoholic father, Pap Finn. Pap is the reason Huck is determined to run away in the first place and Jim quickly realizes if he relays this information to him, he is a goner. He needs Huck as protection, to shield him from the possibility of being hunted down and dragged back to slavery. Jim is concerned with self preservation and proves to be quite intelligent in making sure that he is successful is attaining his goal to leave the South and the enslavement that goes with it.

Craig Hotchkiss, the Program Manager for the Mark Twain House & Museum states that by banning books like Huck Finn, “We are diminishing the power that literature is supposed to have. Great literature it supposed to be disturbing and uncomfortable.” We at the Mark Twain House are dedicated to educating others about the importance of reading books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Despite our best efforts to correctly teach the book and broaden the understanding of the novel and its important messages, it is still banned in schools and libraries across the United States. No restraints should be placed upon books, for they represent the freedom of speech and expression that we have fought so hard for and continue to fight for. Protest the injustice of book banning by exercising your freedom to read what you want to! I encourage all of you to pick up Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or any other banned book, and read it!

- Mallory Howard

Weddings and dinners and all sorts of things!

The Mark Twain House & Museum is thrilled to announce that we are re-invigorating our facilities rentals. That's a really boring way to say that you can now rent spaces in our museum for delightful and intellectual events in your life, such as a company conference, screening your movie in our theater, or in the case of a lovely Hartford couple-- get married on the ombra!



Aren't they great?

To learn more about facilities rentals please visit our website.

- The Mark Twain House & Museum

"The Gilded Age" Onstage

In advance of Ellen Faith Brodie and David Pellegrini of Eastern Connecticut State University's September 16th reading of a new stage adaptation of “The Gilded Age,” Mark Twain House & Museum’s Director of Communications Jacques Lamarre explores the novel’s previous journeys to the stage. The reading will be performed by students from Eastern CT State University's Performing Arts Department Theatre Program


Mark Twain is most famous for his novels, short stories, and his observant and incisive non-fiction. He is also well known as an orator who circled the globe entertaining audiences with his quick witticisms. His stage performances, although portraying no one other than himself, were a master class in comic timing and displayed his consummate grasp of how to hold a crowd rapt. Despite his indubitable way with words and his undeniable stage presence, one area of accomplishment eluded him that seemed to be well within his reach -- to be a truly successful dramatist.


During Twain’s lifetime, he was an avid theatre-goer. According to Shelley Fisher Fishkin, “young Sam Clemens was exposed to mock Shakespearean orations and swordfights, minstrel shows, and amateur theatricals. When he left home at age seventeen, he attended his first professional theatre in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Keokuk, Iowa.” (“Mark Twain and the Theatre,” Afterword, Is He Dead?, p. 147) He spent time writing theatre criticism during his tenure as a journalist for the Virginia City, Nevada Territorial Enterprise and he championed the cause of the acting profession when he became a founding member of the still-extant Players Club in New York. As much as he loved attending and debating the merits of plays, he saw huge money-making potential in the theatre.



The only play Twain wrote that was a success during his lifetime* had an odd beginning, much like the novel that serves as its basis. Twain’s first novel, a collaborative effort with his Hartford neighbor Charles Dudley Warner, was born as a result of dinner table conversation. After eviscerating novels that they found lacking, their wives challenged them to write one that was better. The two men took up the challenge and the resulting novel The Gilded Age – A Tale of Today was published in 1873 and became an immediate success. R. Kent Rasmussen sums up the book as “a sprawling epic with multiple story lines and dozens of characters…a melodramatic saga of a Midwestern family nearly destroyed by its faith in illusory wealth and a fierce satire of post-Civil War America. The novel skewers government and politicians, big business and America’s obsession with getting rich.” (Rasmussen, Mark Twain A-Z, p. 167) Aside from a title that has since become associated with the gilt-edged era of excess that it satirizes, The Gilded Age may be best remembered for the character of Colonel Sellers, a comic schemer who always sees fortune in speculation shouting, “There’s millions in it!”


Undoubtedly, Twain and others saw millions in Colonel Sellers coming to life onstage. In 1873, Twain and Warner filed for copyright protection for “The Gilded Age: A Drama” and approached playwright Dion Boucicault to adapt the work for the stage. After Boucicault insisted on a three-way split of the profits, the idea was shelved. According to Jerry Thomason and Tom Quirk, Twain may have attempted his own adaptation of the novel in February 1874, an effort that was ultimately discarded. (Introduction, Colonel Sellers: A Drama in Five Acts, The Missouri Review, p. 111) In April 1874, Twain and Warner discovered that, despite their copyright, a stage version of The Gilded Age dramatized by G.B. Densmore had been launched in San Francisco and became an immediate hit with comic actor John T. Raymond playing Colonel Sellers.



Twain smelled money and quickly entailed the San Francisco production and purchased the Densmore script for $400 ($200 for the script with an additional $200 promised if Twain’s adaptation became a success). Twain set up an agreement with Warner that each author of the novel owned the rights to the characters they had individually created without royalty due to the other. Successfully quarantining any financial obligation to Warner, Twain set about adapting, augmenting and embellishing the Densmore script (while, apparently, pinching some of Warner’s material despite their agreement). The resulting stage play was subsequently entitled Colonel Sellers and written with actor John Raymond in mind.



Colonel Sellers made its debut at the Park Theatre in New York on September 16, 1874. The play was an immediate success with audiences. Critical opinion appears to be sharply divided. “James T. Fields found it ‘simply delicious’; President Grant went backstage to compliment Raymond; and the Atlantic, as well as several daily papers, was full of praise.” (Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, p. 180). Other reviews were not as kind: “George Odell’s Annals of the New York Stage dubbed Colonel Sellers ‘a wretched thing,’ while the New York Tribune called it ‘excessively thin in texture.’” (Fishkin, Afterword to Is He Dead? p. 149) Twain himself acknowledges the piece’s shortcomings in a letter to William Dean Howells, “It is simply a setting for the one character, Col. Sellers, and as a play I guess it will not bear a critical assault in force.” Regardless of the critical reaction, the play must have exceeded Twain’s expectations – it toured consistently for 12 years and brought him royalties in excess of $100,000 during its time on the road. “The daily reports of the profits arrived in Hartford around dinnertime, and Howells recalled that Clemens would spring to his feet, fling his napkin on his chair, and in ‘wild triumph’ read aloud the ‘gay figures.’” (Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, p. 180)



Sadly, the success of Colonel Sellers was not a harbinger of future success on the boards for Twain. His next effort Ah Sin, a collaboration with Bret Harte, was by all accounts a disaster and closed after one week. Attempting to return to the Colonel Sellers well, he wrote a sequel with William Dean Howells for John Raymond to perform entitled Colonel Sellers as a Scientist. Raymond, whose relationship with Twain had begun to sour, demurred at the opportunity to revisit the character in an inferior vehicle. Twain went on to eviscerate Raymond in Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography, stating, “The real Colonel Sellers was never on the stage. Only half of him was there. Raymond could not play the other half of him; it was above his level. That half was made up qualities of which Raymond was wholly destitute. For Raymond was not a manly man, he was not an honorable man or an honest one, he was empty and selfish and vulgar and ignorant and silly, and there was a vacancy in him where his heart should have been.” (Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography, p. 9) This disparaging assessment is pure Twain, but shocking when measured alongside the extraordinary debt Twain owed Raymond; thanks to the actor, Twain made more money each year that Colonel Sellers toured than he realized from his books. During his lifetime, it was one of his greatest financial successes.



In 1986, Hartford’s relationship with The Gilded Age was reignited when Hartford Stage engaged playwright Constance Congdon to adapt the tale under the direction of Mark Lamos. In 2010, Eastern Connecticut State University professors Ellen Faith Brodie and David Pellegrini have created their own stage adaptation of the novel, once again bringing Colonel Sellers to dramatic (and comic) life. Finding the book’s original subtitle “A Tale of Today” to still be apropos, Brodie and Pellegrini’s version dials down the melodrama and pushes Twain and Warner’s themes of political gain and financial greed to the fore. The Mark Twain House & Museum will present the first public reading of their script at a free program on Thursday, September 16th at 7 p.m. in the Museum Center auditorium. The Brodie/Pellegrini version will then be fully staged by the ECSU Performing Arts Department Theatre Program November 9th through 14th, 2010 at the Harry Hope Theatre on the University’s campus. Undoubtedly, Twain would be thrilled to find that Colonel Sellers is still bringing in the crowds.



*Twain’s recently-exhumed 1898 play Is He Dead? is generally conceded to be his best work for the stage and enjoyed modest success on Broadway during the 2007-2008 season and subsequently on regional stages.

Mark Twain’s Connecticut

The Mark Twain House & Museum is very pleased to be collaborating with the folks at the Wilton Historical Society (Wilton, CT) and the Mark Twain Library (Redding, CT) on the exhibition, Wilton’s Friend: Mark Twain, which opens on September 1st at the Wilton Historical Society.

Over the course of his seventy-four years, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) traveled to over thirty states, and crisscrossed the globe, visiting five continents, crossing the Atlantic twenty-nine times, and crossing the Pacific and Indian oceans as part of his round-the-world lecture circuit. He wrote to his mother, “All I do know or feel, is, that I am wild with impatience to move—move—Move!”

When the time came for him to settle down, Clemens chose Connecticut. In fact, the only two homes that he ever constructed for himself were both in the state. In 1874, as his career was exploding, Clemens built a large mansion in the Nook Farm neighborhood of Hartford for his growing family. In 1908, toward the end of his career, he built an Italianate-style villa, which he named “Stormfield,” in Redding.

Both of these homes represented a sense of stability and permanence to Clemens, and they were equally special to him. Wilton’s Neighbor, Mark Twain, brings together artifacts belonging to The Mark Twain House, Mark Twain Library, and the Wilton Historical Society to give an intimate look at Twain’s life in both Hartford and Redding.

Visitors to the exhibit will get a chance to see some special items from our collection that you don’t normally see when you visit Hartford. Items such as Twain’s billiard cue and humidor, his patented inventions of the “Mark Twain’s Memory Builder” and Self-Pasting Scrapbook, and his family’s picnic basket (which includes some silverware items lifted from Long’s Hotel in London) all give insight into the lives that our beloved author and his family led while living in Connecticut.

We hope you’ll get a chance to visit Wilton’s Neighbor: Mark Twain before it closes on October 31st.

~ Patti Phillipon, Chief Curator of The Mark Twain House & Museum

Double Blog

The Mark Twain House & Museum is constantly working on several projects at once-- you may have noticed our advertising for our Ghost Tours, foodie events, educational programs, and more-- but we're also building up momentum on a project that isn't quite as fancy but vitally important to the author's legacy.

Last Spring we launched a brand-new program that has long been a dream of the staff here: Writing at The Mark Twain House. Our flagship course was taught by Lary Bloom and Suzanne Levine and focused on Memoir. Our students spent eight weeks writing and critiquing their work. Due to their successes, we're delighted to announce that we will continue to offer Writing Workshops at the Mark Twain Museum Center for as long as aspiring and established writers keep on coming back to take them.

We also are committed to displaying our writers' voices, and so we have started a second blog entirely devoted to the product of these workshops: Writing at The Mark Twain House. That blog will display the writing of our students as well as announce upcoming courses and report on the progress we're making in the program. Please follow it!

As if that weren't exciting enough, we're also thrilled to announce that the next round of Nonfiction writing workshops will be taught by the illustrious Susan Campbell, author of Dating Jesus and columnist for the Hartford Courant. Classes will treat all manner of non-fiction work, from opinion writing to autobiography to essay writing to general truth-telling, guided by the spirits of E. B. White, Jessica Mitford, Tracy Kidder and Joan Didion, among others. The six sessions run from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday evenings, beginning Nov. 10 and running to Dec. 22 (no class Nov. 24). There is a fee of $500. Call Steve Courtney at 860-247-0998, Ext. 243, steve.courtney@marktwainhouse.org.

We hope that you are as excited about this set of programs as we are! Let us know in the comments what you think, what kind of writing workshop you'd take, and which writers you'd love to see here at the Twain House.

-- Julia

Scholarly Pursuits

At Boston University on August 20-22, three staff members of The Mark Twain House & Museum will be giving lectures at the Twain/Tolstoy Symposium. Mallory Howard will speak on Twain's marginalia, Julia Pistell will give a lecture on wit in Twain's nonfiction, and our Chief Curator Patti Phillipon will deliver the keynote address. We're all very excited and a bit nervous to collaborate with so many fantastic scholars.

This is Julia writing today's blog post, and I have been working on my lecture every day for the last week or so. I'm fairly new to the Twain House, and much of my time is spent doing things like researching famous moustaches and organizing the logistics of writing workshops, so I'm trying to catch up on my scholarly work. I'm currently reading the Justin Kaplan biography Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, and I've already written about several other Twain biographies is a previous post. I've worked for the Twain House for a year now, and have picked up what feels like a lot of information about Sam's legacy and work. Yet, I can't help but feel that I will never be a real Twain scholar. There's just so much to know.

It's also a horse of a different color to become a Twain expert as opposed to, say, a J.D. Salinger expert. Twain wrote so much, and an absolutely insane amount of letters, and has captivated the American imagination for about 140 years. There are so many experts that have come before us, what does it take to throw a hat in the ring?

My favorite line in the Kaplan biography is the following: "Recognizing that Orion was bound by the laws of his nature to a lifetime fickleness of purpose and a butterfly vagrancy, Sam once meant to reassure him that there was no reason why a kaleidoscope should not have as good a time as a telescope." I've decided that my current kaleidoscopic view of Twain is lovely in its own way, and an excellent jumping-off point for becoming more telescopic.

So what do you think, loyal readers? At what point does someone become an expert? A scholar? An aficionado? A Twainiac? I'm going to keep thinking about it, but I'd love to hear your thoughts, too.

-- Julia

Letter from a Fan

We asked one of our most frequent Mark Twain House facebook commenters about her enthusiasm for Twain. She wrote us this lovely letter. Thanks, Marie!

Good afternoon!

Well, I was asked why I am so fascinated by the Mark Twain House, and all it entails. Let me share some of my thoughts on this.

First, it is exciting to know that the Mark Twain house, and museum, is only about 30 minutes from me, here in Ct. It makes me proud, as well, because he gave the world so much.

Next, I am a writer, and when I step into the M.T. house, I step into his world, and relate to many things: he was a deep thinker, and writes of his beliefs, interests, and things he wanted to share so much. He learned to take care of himself growing up, as I did, and he grew up by the river--I grew up by the Atlantic Ocean.

During his time, there were slaves, and although we no longer have slaves, I am a slave to my writing, many times kept captive, because there is so much I would like to share with the world, but held back.

For me, I absolutely love anything from the 1800s: antiques, the styles, the way they lived, the decor, the beauty of the homes, and all. To step into Samuel Clemen's home, and visualize him and his family living there, or the family sitting at the table for meals, or know he reclined in that house creating stories and more, profoundly warms my heart.

It all may sound corny to you, but he was an every day person who achieved a goal in life--writing and sharing his innermost thoughts, and I am the same, just not a well-known.

Honestly, I only know of what I relate to in what I have mentioned. When I worked in a middle school, and we talked about Samuel Clemens, I learned quite a bit, and the wheels started turning in my head because I related to many things about him.

When I realized the Mark Twain House was not that far, I couldn't wait to get there, and to actually step foot into the past. I have visited a few times, and each time I am almost speechless to know that I walked the same stairs he and the family did, be in the rooms that he actually was in, and more.

How I would love to sit down with him today and experience how he thinks, and maybe, realize that we are both alike as writers; the good days, the bad days, the writer's block, how he got his ideas--I bet I have been through the same things he has.

To think that his beautiful house only cost about $40,000 back then. Could you imagine what it would be worth today, with all those rooms and all the land, as well as the servants house (?) etc.

I am a deep thinker, but down to earth. I think Samuel Clemens was a little bit eccentric. However, in my closing thoughts, I want to say that I feel one in the same with someone whom I have never met, but have the chance to visit the Mark Twain House whenever I want, and be "wow'd" because maybe one day someone will be feeling the same about me. I am not sure he wrote poetry, but most of my work is poetry--a therapy for me; I have been writing since I was 8 years old. I am only now working on children's stories, a memoir, other books, and worked for newspapers, writing feature stories--I believe Samuel Clemens also worked for newspaper outfits.

When I visit, I take pictures of as many things as I am allowed at the Mark Twain House, and use my photos as postcards ( as well as hundreds of other "kodak moments"), and love to send them to children I know, elderly, the lonely, the sick, shut-in's, etc. and share with them something special, teaching them, and giving them something special to experience. Most of them will never get there, so I am very lucky that I can!

If anyone is interested receiving, or know of someone who would like to receive my "Mark Twain" postcards, or other postcards because they are shut-in's or lonely, etc, please let me know. I do a postcard/card/letter ministry at no charge--it is my hobby.

Know that the Mark Twain House is getting some free publicity! It makes me happy to do this--if Samuel Clemens only knew!

Thank you for your time.

Marie Serio DellaValle

10 Moustaches We Love

Tomorrow's Summer Social and Moustache Party will be just that-- a party. Amongst all of these lectures, musical tributes, family events, writing workshops, and sold-out tours, we wanted to give a nod to Sam's love of a nice evening socializing.

There are so many fantastic elements to this event I can't even bring myself to put them into full sentences:

- Only $10 and $5 for members!
- Ice Cream from the UConn Dairy Bar included in admission (locally made!)
- One Huckleberry Vodka Lemonade ALSO included in admission (courtesy of 44 North!)
- Puppeteer Anne Cubberly will be on hand to help you make your own felt moustache
- Catie Talarski of WNPR will be on hand to judge best Moustaches (real and fake)
- Locally renowned band String Theorie will play on the porch of the house
- Bocce, badminton, Twister, horseshoes and more to play on the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center lawn
- Scrabble, Balderdash, chess, and more to play indoors if it rains!
- A cash bar no matter what! The happiest happy hour of all!
- 5-8 PM on a Wednesday-- I'd call this the best happy hour ever.

But without further ado, I present to you ten moustaches we love.

1. Salvador Dali. If you're going to wear a moustache, might as well accessorize with an ocelot.



2. Charlie Chaplin. Just classic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoKbDNY0Zwg

3. This guy! Keep watching for the 'stache.

http://vimeo.com/7877526

4. The fine folks at Movember. This is actually a LOT of moustaches, but the cause is awesome and you can participate all over the world.

http://us.movember.com/

5. My friend Rachel's dog's moustache.


6. Sexy fish moustaches.

7. Fun uncles of the world. I have a fun uncle with a moustache, do you?

8. Wow!



9. This person is serious about his efforts.



10. Of course...



See you tomorrow evening, rain or shine!

- The Mark Twain House & Museum

The Greatest Person from Back Then Ever

One of our current exhibitions in our Museum Center is Legacy: an examination of how Mark Twain’s presence still lives with us today. After reading what authors and public figures (including Tom Wolfe, David Baldacci and Roy Blount Jr.) have to say about Twain’s relevance, many of our guests write their thoughts on Sam and his legacy in one of our guest books. Today we thought we’d pull out a few of our favorite comments.

Without further ado, here are my top ten favorite Legacy comments and the reasons why I love them:

1. “How to describe Mark Twain’s Legacy? America is his legacy. Some people know more about him than they know about US Presidents. More people know his stories than probably any other author.” -- Jon

The Mark Twain House & Museum draws visitors from all over the world for just this reason. Sometimes it seems like everyone can tell a Sam story, or feels that they personally know Tom and Huck. Fiction is powerful.

2. “Mark on Sam: You were so ahead of your time in the sympathetic portrayal of Jim.”

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the major reasons that we still study Sam in school, and Jim is one of the major reasons the novel is so fantastic. Thanks for reminding us, Anonymous!

3. “Mark Twain would have an ipad and an appearance on ‘Oprah.’ ”

Yes! Always the celebrity, and always curious about new technology.

4. “Becky Thatcher is the coolest character EVER created.”

I tend to agree. Becky is such a smart, hilarious, brave little girl. It’s no wonder Tom fell so hard for her.

5. “Dear Mark Twain you are an asome writer to me you’re a good ilistrater” – Frome your Best Brother: Edwin

Based on this commenter’s handwriting, I think he’s just learning to read and write. We’re pretty excited that Twain’s stories are compelling to even the newest of literary minds.

6. “You helped me enjoy my childhood in a little town in Iran.” -- Faridet, age 60

Tom Sawyer isn’t just a boy from the Mississippi River: he’s every kid, as we’ve learned over and over from our visitors.

7. “I heart Samuel Clemens. P.S. Sorry about your kids.” – Katelyn

I know, Katelyn. I know. For those of you who don’t feel the pain, watch Ken Burns’ documentary and cry along with Katelyn and me.

8. “I think it’s cool that he has a lot of humor.” - Kevin

Well hey, so do I! That’s one of the reasons I love working for this place!

9. “I think Mark Twain did a good job with his life. He has a great wife, kids, personality. So Mark Twain is actually a good man. He also traveled halfway around the world. Good job Mark Twain.” – Shella

Not all writers were as successful as Sam at nearly every single facet of life. Even though he suffered trials and tribulations throughout his life, Shella is right: good job, Mark.

10. “You are the greatest person from Back Then ever.”

Heck yes!


Honorable mention: “Alex Trebek is the Best!”

For $1000: What is Julia's favorite comment in the comment book?

A Quagmire of Quotations

Mark Twain is justly known for his many quips, witticisms and pithy observations. Across his novels, short stories, letters, speeches, plays and newspaper stories, he left a vast amount of quotable statements on everything from “Abstinence” to “Zug.” Seemingly he had an opinion on everything – human nature, animals, war, religion, politics, literature, love, family, money, history, friends and enemies. There are volumes dedicated to his succinct and often humorous assessments on a plethora of subjects.

One challenge with Twain quotations is the frequent misstatement of what he said. An example is the infamous “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated!” quote. We have used this quote in print ads and on a t-shirt in our store. It is, in fact, not what he said – or at least not how he said it in the following note written in May 1897:

“James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness, this report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Shame on us for perpetuating this mistake!

The famous quote attributed to Twain “I am not an American. I am the American.” makes for great copy. Unfortunately, Twain himself (American or not) did not say this about himself – he was repeating a quote from his friend Frank Fuller. Similarly, the much-repeated “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics” is attributed to Twain who was, in fact, quoting Benjamin Disraeli. The very funny “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds” was actually said by the very funny Edgar Wilson Nye.

Recently I was asked by two visitors to our website to confirm the provenance of two quotes commonly attributed to Twain:

“Golf is a good walk spoiled.”

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

After doing some research and asking around, these two popular quotes that are routinely attributed to Twain could not be definitively confirmed as his words. I reached out to Barbara Schmidt, the webmaster and creator of the superlative www.twainquotes.com and asked her to share some of the most commonly repeated apocryphal Twain quotes. In her words (and, yes, I am attributing this quote with confidence): “Twain has been labeled a ‘quote magnet.’ Anything that sounds good is often misattributed to him.” The following is her list of some of the most frequently misattributed quotes.

"The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco."

“Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.”

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

“Be careful of reading medical magazines; you might die of a misprint.”

“Don't argue with people who buy ink by the barrel.”

“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” (or “Denial ain’t a river in Egypt”)

Barbara is not saying that Twain didn’t say these things per se. On her website, some of these alleged quotes are followed by the statement, “This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but until the attribution can be verified, the quote should not be regarded as authentic.” When in doubt, Barbara recommends the following: “One of the best ways to research misattributed quotes is to use Google book and Google news archive searches for exact phrases. You will often find the first usage of such a phrase long after Clemens's death and not in any of his known works.” When we are in doubt, we generally turn to Barbara’s website or Caroline Thomas Harnsberger’s excellent Everybody’s Mark Twain and Mark Twain at Your Fingertips. Of course, our store has several terrific Twain books that are filled with correctly attributed quotes.

Much like the “Telephone Game,” these supposed Twain quotes may have been passed along, reported, re-reported, misstated, attributed and misattributed. In the end, many of them are simply very funny and therefore sound very Twain. He probably would be amused, but just like all of us, he probably would not be thrilled to have people put words in his mouth!

Jacques Lamarre

Director of Communications

Is The Mark Twain House really haunted?

Shortly after I arrived at The Mark Twain House & Museum a year ago, I received an inquiry from the Smoking Gun Research Agency (SGRA), a CT-based paranormal group. Having received seven reports of suspected ghostly activity from visitors who had attended tours of the house, they were requesting the opportunity to conduct an investigation of the Clemens Family home.

Being new to the historic house museum business, I was not aware that these requests are a fairly common occurrence. I asked around if we previously had allowed paranormal investigations in the house. The answer was “no.” I then asked if the house was thought to be haunted. The answers ranged wildly. Some of the staff have reported no experiences whatsoever. Several employees do not believe in ghosts and think it is all bunk. Surprisingly, however, there were a substantial number of historic interpreters (a.k.a. tour guides) and security staff who had experienced the unexplained. Twain’s daughter Susy did die tragically in the house and many believe she never left. Some think the Clemens Family’s butler George Griffin is still looking after the home.

We agreed to allow SGRA into the house for a one-night investigation in August 2009. Although the house did not come alive that night with the full array of paranormal activity that people report experiencing – knocks, bangs, full-body apparitions, spectral voices, articles of clothing being tugged, cigar smells – SGRA did feel the house was “energetically active.” This Saturday, June 12th at 2 p.m., they will offer “Haunting Twain,” a free public presentation of their investigation at ParaCon 2010. Their program is open to the public and will occur at the Howard Johnson Conference Center in Milford, CT (visit http://www.sgra.org/paracon2010/ for details).

In September 2009, we welcomed SyFy’s hit television show Ghost Hunters for a much more comprehensive investigation of the house. They sent three teams into the house at different times. They were armed with infrared cameras, video and audio recording devices, EMF detectors, and more. Their episode aired in December and revealed knocks, bangs, EMF spikes and shadow movement that could not be easily explained.

In March 2010, we were visited by SyFy’s Ghost Hunters Academy for a follow-up investigation. They conducted a two-night investigation involving several teams of cadets all vying for one coveted spot as a member of TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society). If you want to find out the results of their investigation, you will have to watch our episode, which airs Wednesday, June 16th at 9 p.m. The Twain Team will be gathering at Woody’s Fish Tank (915 Main Street in downtown Hartford) to see and hear the TAPS Team findings. Please join us that night starting at 7 p.m. for a fun event.

So, ultimately, is The Mark Twain House haunted? The skeptics are still skeptical. The believers are even more convinced that there is something floating around in the house. Me? I haven’t experienced anything, but I’m open to the possibility. We invite you to make up your own mind by taking our Graveyard Shift Ghost Tours which start up this summer on Friday, June 25th. These hour-long nighttime guided tours of the dimly lit Picturesque Gothic mansion are by reservation only, so call (860) 280-3130 to reserve your spot. You can review the evidence, hear spooky episodes from the Clemens Family history, discover Victorian traditions surrounding séances and death, and maybe, just maybe, you might hear something that goes bump in the night or see something that will make your hair stand on end.

- Jacques Lamarre, Director of Communications

A Drag Queen at The Mark Twain House? Really?

On Friday, June 18th at 8 p.m., The Mark Twain House & Museum welcomes international chanteuse and drag comedian Varla Jean Merman for a one-night-only fundraising event. Having been seen at Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, London’s West End, TV’s Project Runway, Ugly Betty, and New York’s Public Theatre, Varla (a.k.a. Jeffery Roberson) is certainly one of the top drag performers in the world. But a drag queen at The Mark Twain House? Really? This may seem, well, a bit odd. Actually, very odd. But, with minimal effort one can find the connection.

In Twain’s masterpiece Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the titular character dresses as a girl to gain intelligence on recent events on the river. “I would slip over the river and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn’t I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico gowns and I turned up my trowser-legs to my knees and got into it.” He steals off to the home of a woman whose husband is out searching for the escaped slave Jim. After bungling his nom de drag and committing various other feminine faux pas, the woman exposes Huck’s charade with invaluable drag advice on how to properly thread a needle and the ladylike way to throw something at a rat. The book contains other sequences of cross-dressing shenanigans involving the “King” dressing as Juliet and Jim dressed as Aunt Sally.

Twain’s recently unearthed and revised stage comedy, Is He Dead?, features a protagonist who cross-dresses to commit fraud in the art world. An artist, in order to escape crushing debt and a life of penury, decides to fake his death in order to become successful. “One of us must seem to die – must change his name and disappear – we’ll make his name sound throughout the world, and the riches will come. Francois Millet must die!” Knowing that an artist’s work is far more valuable if the creator is dead, Millet and his co-conspirators scheme to “kill” the artist. After convincing everyone that he has succumbed to a horrible fate, he returns dressed as his sister, the Widow Daisy Tillou, to collect the money that will undoubtedly start accumulating. When Millet makes his first appearance in drag, Twain’s stage directions paint a not-so-pretty picture: “The Widow, young, handsome, cheaply but prettily dressed with hat or without it, as you please, comes mincing out of the bedroom, smoking a corncob or briarwood pipe.” Millet complains, “You see I’m femininely ignorant. I could make fatal mistakes in talking…I’ll do the best I can…I can’t stand too much of an exhibition. Let me run in and fix my hair.”

Cross-dressing appears in other Twain texts including The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, and various short stories. Linda A. Morris’s book Gender Play in Mark Twain: Cross-dressing and Transgression more fully explores drag in Twain’s literature along with the Victorian and Minstrel Show traditions that influenced this aspect of his writing. And if you still don’t believe that Mark Twain might welcome a drag comedian at his home, you can check out the photo of Twain himself bedecked in a dress and a bonnet, performing in a family theatrical with daughter Susy. He has even smartly accessorized with a hot water bottle.

Varla Jean Merman is “The Lady Behind the Moustache” is Friday, June 18th at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased by calling (860) 280-3130.

- Jacques Lamarre, Director of Communications

Free Saturdays of Summer

One thing that we at the Mark Twain House love about Hartford is how often our nonprofits collaborate. We have two big free Saturdays coming up, and we'd love for you to know about them!

This very Saturday, our Education Director Craig Hotchkiss will participate in the Wadsworth Atheneum's Last Saturdays program. Craig will deliver a historical and playful storytelling activity, and some of our fun Twain swag will be in attendance, too. The program will be held at the Wadsworth on Main Street in downtown Hartford. Visit Craig and see if you can tell a story as great as one of Sam's!

Even more exciting, on June 12th, we will be hosting a smorgasboard of artists, actors, craftsmen, and musicians to celebrate Tom Sawyer Day for FREE. June 12th is also Connecticut Open House Day, one of the many Big Read events, and Hartford's Magical History Tour (in conjunction with the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and the Amistad Center for Arts & Culture). Phew! That's a lot of collaboration!

Tom Sawyer Day will run from 10 - 5 on June 12th and will feature some incredible locals, including:

- The Cupcake Brake (like an ice cream truck for cupcakes)
- Sea Tea Improv
- Puppetteer Anne Cubberly
- The Bawdy Buckaneers
- The Hartford City Ballet
- The Children's Museum
- On-site Leapfrog and Marbles
- A stretchers-telling contest (you can do better than "the dog ate my homework!" Prove it!)

And about twenty more attractions-- all for free! It will be a full, fantastic day here at Nook Farm (with free shuttle service down to the Wadsworth & Amistad Center).

Can't wait to see you here on June 12th!

- The Mark Twain House

Mark Twain Talks to Us

In 2003, as I was researching a biography of Mark Twain’s best friend – a minister, if it can be believed – I got a chance to spend several winter weeks alone in the great hilltop farmhouse in Elmira, N.Y., where Twain wrote many of his significant works. (The house, Quarry Farm, is maintained by The Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, one of the key Twain loci.) I took along a box of microfilm shipped there for the purpose by the Mark Twain Papers & Project at the University of California, Berkeley. When I switched on the light in the microfilm reader and scrolled through the pages, I saw Mark Twain documents like none I’d ever seen – reams and reams of typed stories, reminiscences, ramblings and observations, marked up for publication, numbered and covered with scratched-out portions and marginal notes, sometimes studded with news clippings. Entire sections were repeated with slight changes; some were handwritten. It was really hard to follow.

These were the pages of Twain’s Autobiographical Dictations, the fruits of a massive project the writer undertook in 1904 to record his life. He spoke to a succession of transcribers and set himself specific guidelines: “Start it at no particular time of your life; talk only about the thing that interests you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale, and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting thing that has intruded itself into your mind meantime.” So here were, in a chaotic pile, stories of his home life in Hartford, Connecticut, where he spent two happy and productive decades; loving portraits of his daughters and his wife, Livy; some funny (and brave) things that my biography subject, the Reverend Joe Twichell, did; long tales categorizing in excruciating detail the failings of those around him; and, suddenly, bitter diatribes like this one headed “The Character of Man”: “His history, in all climes, all ages and all circumstances, furnishes oceans and continents of proof that of all the creatures that were made he is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one – the solitary one – that possesses malice….That one thing puts him below the rats, the grubs, the trichinae.”

It’s passages like this, I’m guessing, that caused him to put the lid on parts of this autobiography for 100 years, along with other entries that simply put others in a bad light. He wanted to be untrammeled in his expression, and couldn’t be if he had to restrain himself with thoughts of libel, political orthodoxy, and blasphemy. No big biographical revelations, the California editors tell me; simply the man plain, or as a newspaper put it in his own time: “without respect of persons or social conventions, institutions, or pruderies of any kind.”

Now that century-long wait is over, and the extraordinary editors at the Mark Twain Papers & Project are publishing the first volume of these autobiographical writings in November. They have at long last, through many years of close manuscript detective work, sorted that 5,000-page pile of dictations and scraps and pieces into the order Twain himself wanted. In the past week this glorious coming event in Mark Twain scholarship has finally gotten the attention it deserves, thanks to a piece in The Independent, the London newspaper. But it’s more than an event in scholarship: It’s a new chance to hear the voice of Mark Twain as he talks to us directly, wandering his New York rooms in his dressing gown, or in evening garb after an event at Delmonico’s, speaking in loving tones of his dead, bright daughter Susy, or in bitter tones of how human beings stand below even the most repulsive of God’s creatures.

Steve is Publicist and Publications Editor here at The Mark Twain House & Museum and the author of the award-winning Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain’s Closest Friend (University of Georgia Press, 2008).

Our Tweets Will Be a Part of History!

Back in April the Library of Congress announced that they acquired every tweet ever made, thanks to a gift from Twitter, Inc. And they will continue to acquire tweets as they are made! I apologize if I'm behind the times, I've just seen this headline now. But how cool is that?! I tell the kids on my tours a lot that historians 150 years from now will have a hard time researching our generation because everything is texting, IMing, Facebook message, wall posts, tweets and emails, and those things seemingly are lost when they are deleted. Over the years the art of the letter and the love letter, the diary and journal, writing in longhand - they've disappeared. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone? Not a birthday card or a thank you card, but an actual letter. Got out a piece of lined paper and a pencil and wrote a letter to someone telling them how you're doing and asking them the same? I haven't done this in... years. So 150 years from now, what will historians have to say about me? All of my texts and emails... they'll be gone.

So it's nice to know that my tweets will last. Although, what will our tweets say about our generation? Justin Bieber was a trending topic for how many weeks... 15? Let it be known for the record that I had no part in that!

What do you think about having your tweets housed forever in the Library of Congress? There is a group out there who disagrees with it, so they've created hashtag #noLOC, so if you use that in your tweet, the tweet will be automatically deleted after 23 weeks and your tweet will not end up in the LoC.

We can't all be Mark Twain's and go down in history for our humor. We may as well go down in history for our excessive and twasome tweeting!



*Caitlin

"The minor events of history are valuable, although not always showy and picturesque." -Mark Twain

At What Age Does Museum Advocacy Begin?

As we are now in May and my staff has got a full month of school field trips under their belt, it seemed appropriate timing for the Reach Advisors to send out an email about the importance of field trips and how important they are to the growth of advocates for museums. They surveyed over 40,000 households that were active museum visitors and asked them about their museum experiences as children. The results, they found, were that 1/3 of those surveyed remembered visiting museums with school (rather than with a mother or father). They then went even further and found that as children, those whose parents were less educated meant the memories of school field trips were even more common. "In short, for children who grow up in households with lower educational attainment, school field trips are an incredibly powerful and important pathway to future engagement with museums as adults, figuring in nearly half of memories for those whose parents have the lowest educational attainment."

Previous studies found that the time in a child's life that is the most influential to creating a sense of advocacy for museums is between the ages of 5 and 9. So what does this all mean? What's the point? The point is that every day schools are cutting the budgets for field trips or getting rid of them entirely. Schools are taking less trips, and for the lower-income school districts this means no trips at all. And if you remember, for those lower-income familes/schools, where it is more likely that parents have less formal education, these trips are so important for those students.

We've been fortunate here at the Mark Twain House, that for the past few years we've been able to receive grant funding to provide a Free School Visit program to the priority districts in the state of Connecticut. This allows those schools to visit for free, and we are able to provide a subsidy for their bus costs. So far this year we're finding that bookings for the Free School Visits has increased approximately 130%! More and more schools are taking us up on it because there aren't many other museums that offer a similar program.

So this of course got me thinking about the kids who come through here daily. In the past few weeks we've had students from Stamford, Waterbury, Darien, Hartford, West Hartford, Haddam, Reading, Massachusetts among others. When I give a tour, I spend an hour with these 3rd, 4th, 5th grade kids who are completely enthralled by every word coming out of my mouth. They demand to know what every object was used for and where Mark Twain sat and what he touched. They tell me continuously that they want to live here and can they move in? Their excitement is contagious and by the end of the tour I really think that I've made an impact. Then I open the door and they exit the house and their talk turns to the candy they bought in the store and they just got a new pair of shoes and don't you like my hair today? And I think, well hopefully they'll remember this visit next week. It's encouraging to know that their visits stick with them and turn them into advocates later in life. We need more of those.

To read past blogs by the Reach Advisors about school trips go here and here, and for more information on the study go here.

*Caitlin

"Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog." -Mark Twain

100 Years, 100 Ways of Thinking about Sam

Hello there, Mark Twain fans!

Julia Pistell here, Caitlin's office neighbor and comrade in Twain scholarship. I will be helping out with the blog from time to time to keep you up to speed on our thoughts and programs. I pledge to live up to her high standards.

Last weekend, the New Jersey paper the Star Ledger published a short essay I wrote about three Twain biographers. These three writers will be visiting us on Monday, May 10th to discuss their work. It's all part of the NEA's Big Read. The biographers don't always agree, so the panel has the makings of an enthralling literary debate. We hope you'll be there.

Below is an excerpt of my Star Ledger piece. Read it over, think up some questions for our panel, and come by on Monday!

***

In 1909, Thomas Edison, a resident of Menlo Park and West Orange, filmed Samuel Clemens at his home in Redding, Conn., thus creating the only moving picture of America's most popular writer. Edison's brief footage shows Twain as he still lives in our cultural imagination: dressed in white, smoking a cigar.

Now, at the centennial commemoration of the death of Samuel L. Clemens, the author’s life has transformed into the legacy of Mark Twain. How we recall Twain today is reflective of how he wanted to be remembered: as, in his purported words, not “an American, but the American.” Three new biographical works revise this image.

Michael Shelden’s ”Mark Twain, Man in White: The Grand Adventure of His Final Years” (Random House, 528 pp., $30) is “the story of how this consummate showman staged his parting scenes, what he did to perpetuate his fame and how he made it pay long after he was gone.” Shelden’s work addresses an essential fact about Twain: As a writer, he understood the power of symbolism. Twain is the one who pointed out the association of his birth and death with the passing of Halley’s comet; who permanently stuck Huck, Jim and a raft into the American imagination; and who appeared in a white suit one day, as Shelden says, “impossible to ignore.”
And yet there are conflicting ideas about who Twain was and who he is to us now.

Laura Skandera Trombley’s ”Mark Twain’s Other Woman: The Hidden History of His Final Years” (Knopf, 352 pp., $27.95) relies on the personal writings of Twain’s secretary, Isabel Lyon, to argue he had a darker side, kept out of both his autobiography and the biography he authorized Alfred Bigelow Paine to write while Twain was alive. Trombley seeks to unearth “the story that Mark Twain was determined no one would ever tell.”

Jerome Loving’s more traditional biography, “Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens” (University of California Press, 520 pp., $34.95), says Mark Twain “began as a humorist and ended as a pessimist.” Loving tells yet a third story, a “segmented or episodic life, much like his greatest fictions.” Loving argues that Twain’s final years are merely an epilogue to his life, and that “Mark Twain also died that early June day” in 1904 when his wife, Olivia, died, rendering both the white suit and his relations with Lyon insignificant. The final years that preoccupy Shelden’s and Trombley’s books are, Loving implies, less important than the years Twain spent altering American literature.

The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Conn., whose mission is to cast a wide net on the author’s interests, is untroubled by the complex and conflicting interpretations of Samuel Clemens. On May 10, these three authors will convene there to discuss their respective books and Twain’s legacy.

See you there!

-- Julia

The Death of Twain - 100 years

Last Wednesday, April 21st, was the Centennial of Mark Twain's death. Around the country and in the major Twain sites there were celebrations to be had and a man to be remembered. In Elmira they re-created his funeral procession; and in Redding, Connecticut they held a wake. Here in Hartford we didn't have anything to re-create since he wasn't here at the time or after his death, so we decided to see if we could bring him back. We had a seance with famous illusionist Todd Robbins. We had some cake, and ate it too. We had a ghost tour with famed medium Lorraine Warren. But alas, no Sam.

The seance with Todd Robbins started off with our Mark Twain reading from the letter Sam sent to Harper's Weekly about obituaries and how people should write down ahead of time what they want their last words to be because at the actual time that one is dying you can't possibly think of the perfect last words. And "An obituary is a thing which cannot be so judiciously edited by any hand as by that of the subject of it. In such a work it is not the Facts that are of chief importance, but the light which the obituarist shall throw upon them, the meanings which he shall dress them in, the conclusions which he shall draw from them, and the judgements which he shall deliver upon them." (Twain, "$30k Bequest") Mr. Robbins then took the audience through some psychic tricks - creating a pendulum and moving it with their minds. Then he invited spirits into the room and speaking with the spirits called upon audience members who would know who "James" was or who had a dog named "Bandit". He then invited Twain to come into the room. The lights went out, and whispers surrounded them, whispering "The Impartial Friend: Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all--the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved" (from Albert Bigelow Paine). Twain was speaking about death and life, and the audience was covered in rose petals and when the lights came back on they found themselves surrounded by pages from Tom Sawyer.

When the seance concluded the attendees came out into the Great Hall for the unveiling of the Centennial cake which was in the shape of the Mark Twain House and made by Charm City Cakes, of the Food Network show Ace of Cakes! The cake was beautiful, complete with details of the slate on the roof and flower pots by the porch. Students from the Lincoln Culinary Institute graciously came and cut the cake for us.

Once the cake was consumed the VIPs were led over to the house for a private ghost tour with Lorraine Warren (most famously known for The Amityville Horror). With Rebecca Floyd leading the way (she was on Ghost Hunters while they were here) on the ghost tour Mrs. Warren would tell stories about her own experiences inside the house. Here's a video of her inside the master bedroom talking about a time when she had entered the room and saw Sam's daughter Susy lying on the bed. Susy passed away inside the house at the age of 24 in 1896.



All in all it was a wonderful evening. Those who came had fun, remembered Twain and celebrated his live and his home here in Hartford. If you attended, feel free to leave a comment on how the program went!

*Caitlin

"Death, the refuge, the solace, the best and kindliest and most prized friend and benefactor of the erring, the forsaken, the old and weary and broken of heart." -Mark Twain, Adam & Eve

Tom Sawyer at the Hartford Stage

Last night a bunch of the staff went to see Tom Sawyer at the Hartford Stage. I heard that it was great from others who had been during preview week. We had great seats and watched for two hours as a handful of twenty-somethings brought us back to our pre-teen years. The characters were enthusiastic and energetic and ran around the stage like we used to do as kids. They brought back the feelings we had as kids; shy around the boy/girl we liked, mischievous, thinking the best thing ever was to run around screaming our heads off.

The novel was adapted really well for the play and hit on all of the major scenes of the novel. As someone talks about Twain and Tom Sawyer I didn't feel as though anything had been left out. Throughout the play there are these little narration scenes where one of the characters will leave character and tell the audience something about what is going on. This really helps keep everyone up to speed with what is going on, seeing as they are performing an entire novel in two hours. The stage was used in some really creative ways to create more space than was naturally available. This was especially so in the cave scenes.

Personally, I was entranced by the Becky character. I imagine it must be really hard to have to act like a little girl for two hours but she was really wonderful. I imagine it probably isn't too tough for the boys to act like little boys for two hours, but what do I know?

I tweeted throughout the whole (before, intermission and after), if you'd like to read what I was saying you can see it here: http://www.twitter.com/twainhouse. Funny enough, "Becky's" parents came to visit the museum today. They picked up the Tom Sawyer flier and I commented how wonderful the play was. The laughed a little and said thanks, that their daughter was Becky Thatcher. Later, before their tour started, I saw her mom putting in her face in the Becky Thatcher cutout in the museum center. I'm sure their daughter will love seeing that!

If you're in the Hartford area, I highly recommend going to see the play! If you've seen it already, feel free to share your comments on how you think it was below.

*Caitlin

"In writing "Tom Sawyer" I had no idea of laying down rules for the bringing up of small families, but merely to throw out hints as to how they might bring themselves up, and the boys seemed to have caught the idea nicely." -Mark Twain

Was Mark Twain America's Most Important Novelist?

This month's cover story of Knowledge (a BBC magazine) is yours truly - no, not me. Mark Twain. Though I don't see why they shouldn't do a story on me, but that's another story. There is a great six page spread on Twain, his influence, his writing and what he still means to us today. In this, the month of his death, Twain is gracing the cover of more than one publication. He's also featured on Hartford Magazine's cover. I haven't gotten my hands on Hartford Magazine yet, but Peter Messent, the author of the article in Knowledge sent us a copy. It's a well-written piece on Twain's life and legacy, including a time line of major events in Twain's life. At the end there is a section called "For & Against" where two scholars go head-to-head on a topic. This month's question: "Was Mark Twain America's Most Important Novelist?". In one corner for the FOR argument is Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Professor of English at Stamford Univ., Twain scholar and friend of the Twain House. In the opposite corner with the AGAINST argument, Paul Giles, Challis Professor of English at the Univ. of Sydney.

For the yes argument, Ms. Fisher Fishkin uses quotes from authors and world leaders to make her point. She quotes Ernest Hemingway with his famous line, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain..." She also uses Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe as an example, saying that HUCKLEBERRY FINN inspired him to write his first novel. Also, the term "New Deal" used by FDR came from Twain's A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT. She finishes saying, "Humane, sardonic, compassionate, impatient, hilarious, appalling, keenly observant and complex, Twain inspired great writers in the 20th century to become the writers they became...The generative power of the writer Eugene O'Neill called "The true father of all American literature" is unrivaled.

For the no argument, Mr Giles says that "For all of Twain's innovative aspects, did he have the encylopedic range of Herman Melville, the crystalline clarity of F Scott Fitzgerald, or the political impact of Harriet Beecher Stowe?" It seems as though Mr. Giles believes that there really can be no argument for any one writer to be given the credit of being the most important novelist. He says that in universities today, to discuss which novelist is greater than another is "absurd". He finishes by saying that "to call [Twain] the most important American novelist is like calling Chrysler the most important American automobile manufacturer: it's a sonorous statement, but not an especially meaningful one."

So now I ask you, loyal Twainiacs, for your thoughts. And so does KNOWLEDGE! If you have thoughts on this subject I encourage you to share them here but also to email them to editor@bbcknowledge.com!

*Caitlin

"Everybody's private motto: It's better to be popular than right." -Mark Twain, Notebook, 1902

What does Twain's Legacy Mean to YOU?

Mark Twain's legacy. How does one aptly describe what his legacy is, how it affects society, how it affects us individually? In our new exhibit that opened a couple of weeks ago, we asked our visitors to do just that. We've left an open journal with pens and colored pencils and asked you to tell us what Mark Twain and his legacy means to you.

Here are some of the responses:

"What I most admire about Senor Twain was his relentless capacity to poke verbal holes through the armor of pretense and absurdity worn by many around him. I imagine that he made many people uncomfortable and we generally need more of that."

"Mark Twain gave the world at large and Hartford CT specifically the benefits of his wisdom and literary voice - a living legacy we will treasure FOREVER." Bonnie K. Goldberg 2/13/10

"Mark Twain's house is really cool and interesting!"
Maya R. Greenberg, 12 yrs old

"The greatest writer in USA." 2/20/2010








And then, there was this:















So? What about you? What does Mark Twain and his legacy mean to you?


*Caitlin

"Everybody's private motto: It's better to be popular than right." Mark Twain, 1902

Frank Lloyd Wright = Tom Sawyer

That's right, I said it. Frank Lloyd Wright and Tom Sawyer are the same person. Don't believe me? I wouldn't have believed me either until I went on a tour of Taliesin West, his winter home in Arizona. The complex is incredible; and I say complex because not only is it his home, but it is also his office, a school, work room, cabaret theatre and music pavilion. The history behind the building of Taliesin West kept my rapt attention for a 90 minute tour. He and his apprentices/students started with nothing but desert, and worked to build this "campsite". That's how Wright thought of it, as camping. Our tour guide referred to it as camping "Wright style", which is why their campsite included a pool, pianos, Wright's 30 cars (all red) and more. The buildings were built with local materials; literally rocks picked up off the ground and added into the walls. Canvas was used for ceilings (as it doesn't rain often) and windows. There was no glass (until his wife suggested it, at which point Wright said, "I have a great idea! GLASS."). The students camped out in the desert while building Taliesin West, and still do to this day. The site still maintains an architecture program where students can get a bachelors or masters in architecture. There are currently 32 students at the school, and 7-10 get accepted every year. The budget for the buildings was roughly $10,000. So, how did they manage to build all of this with that kind of a budget? I'm getting to that.

So I know you're wondering, what does this have to do with Tom Sawyer? Well I'll tell ya, every time I go on vacation there will be something Twain that I'll run into. Without fail. And yes, working at the Mark Twain House I eat, sleep, breathe and dream Mark Twain. I even bleed Mark Twain. Vacation, however, is vacation. A time to leave it all behind. So I was pretty happy when day 4 of my 7 day vacation rolled around and I was Twain-less. I thought, Arizona didn't even exist when Twain visited the Nevada Territory, I won't run into him here. And then I took this tour. Halfway through the tour we're sitting in the living room admiring the unique chairs and seating they have when a visitor asked how he managed to build all of this for so little money. The tour guide laughs and says, "Well, it was him and the students building it so he didn't have to pay for labor and the materials mostly came from the land. They used desert sand and rocks to build the walls and mix the concrete. And then, since it was his students helping him build he didn't have to pay them. Actually, they were paying him to attend this school! My visitor services manager calls him "the Tom Sawyer of Architecture". And there it was. My Mark Twain reference halfway through vacation while on tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's home.

If you're ever in the Phoenix area I highly recommend taking this tour. The history, the buildings, the views... absolutely worth it.

*Caitlin



"Nevada Territory is fabulously rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quicksilver, marble, granite, chalk, slate, plaster of Paris, thieves, murderers, desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, gamblers, Indians, Chinamen, Spaniards, sharpers, cuyotes, preachers, poets and jackass-rabbits." -Mark Twain

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

This is a really great little piece of writing by Twain that I want to share with you.

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s," and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or so, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c," "y" and "x"--bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez--tu riplais "ch," "sh," and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte same 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Have fun with all that :)

*Caitlin