Mark Twain’s Father-in-Law’s Monopoly: A Brief History of The J. Langdon Coal Company

EDITOR”S NOTE: What follows is a revised version of a talk delivered by Dr. Reigstad at the 8th Quadrennial Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies. It draws upon materials from both the CMTS archives and the Chemung County Historical Society.  Mark Twain officially joined the Langdon family and became associated with its vast coal enterprises when he became engaged to Olivia on February 4, 1869. Three weeks later […]

The Android & The Icon: Mark Twain’s Appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation

With the upcoming premier of Star Trek: Discovery (CBS) on September 24, we thought it might be fun to look back at Mark Twain’s first appearance in the Star Trek universe. Since the original Star Trek aired in 1966, the series and its spinoffs have attempted to align themselves with high literature. Even as the women wore campy costumes and the series boasted primitive special effects, the series grounded itself […]

The Inaugural Trouble Begins Lectures (1985)

The voice in the above clip is that of John S. Tuckey, who, as Joe Csicsila puts it, “changed everything in Mark Twain studies back in 1963” with his book Mark Twain & Little Satan.  In 1985, as America celebrated the sesquicentennial of Samuel Clemens’s birth, Tuckey was part of the star-studded inaugural season of The Trouble Begins lecture series, now entering its 33rd year. The series began with a lecture […]

Improved & Expanded Virtual Tour of Quarry Farm

The virtual tour of Quarry Farm now features 26 different panoramas, covering the whole property, inside and out, as well as the Mark Twain Study, Mark Twain Archive, and GTL Lobby on the Elmira College Campus and the Clemens-Langdon Gravesite at Woodlawn Cemetery. Visitors can also click on “map view” to see the property map and floor plans for the main house. Among the new additions are six panoramas from […]

Friends of Woodlawn Cemetery Present “Close to Clemens” at the Park Church

Friends of Woodlawn present ‘Close to Clemens‘ monologues, Stephen Foster music Eight friends and family members of Samuel Clemens who are buried close to the famous author in Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery will be “resurrected” on Sunday, March 26, to tell their stories. They will appear in a program entitled “Close to Clemens” at The Park Church, 211 Gray Street, Elmira, beginning at 3:00 p.m. The presentation will include monologues interspersed with […]

Dispatches from Quarry Farm: A Tree Named Lewis

Quarry Farm’s only year-round resident, Caretaker Steve Webb, provides us with occasional, not altogether reliable, updates from the premises. To paraphrase the friendly ghost with whom he shares his home, Mr. Webb’s dispatches include eminently plausible fictions, mildly exaggerated truths, and an exhaustless mine of stupendous lies. The rain froze in a thin black sheet beneath two inches of rapidly-accumulated snow, but that didn’t shake this hearty Northeasterner. I exited […]

Sam & Livy Clemens: Married & Buried in Elmira

Mark Twain described his Autobiography as an “apparently systemless system…a complete and purposed jumble,” and so it is, though it is not wholly without method. Over the course of its composition Twain relied heavily on a biography begun by his daughter, Susy Clemens, when she was just thirteen. Twain would copy a selection from “Susy’s Biography” then expound upon the events and episodes sparsely described therein. This ritual provoked both humor […]

Celebrate Sam & Livy’s Anniversary at Park Church

Open House, Thursday, February 2 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Park Church for all members of the Elmira College community. Please join us for a gathering in the Langdon Parlors, built in 1876, with special guests Livy Clemens (portrayed by Sheila Reed) and her father, Jervis Langdon (portrayed by Jim Hare) to hear about the friendships between the Langdons, Beechers, Cranes and other members of the Park Church. […]

CMTS NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR 2018 QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIPS

The Center for Mark Twain Studies offers nine Quarry Farm fellowships for 2018 to any scholar working in the field of Mark Twain Studies at any career stage, giving Fellows the opportunity to work on academic or creative projects at Quarry Farm, the family home of Twain’s sister- and brother-in-law, Susan and Theodore Crane. Twain and his family lived at Quarry Farm for over twenty summers. During this time, in […]