The “Quarry Farm” and “Antenne” Twain Marginalia Now Online
From the January 1985 issue of the Mark Twain Society Bulletin:
“When Sam Clemens married Livy Langdon he married into a family that loved books, bought books, gave books, read books and enjoyed discussing books. In addition to discovering a young lady who was beautiful, charming had a sense of humor and was cultured and wealthy, young Mark Twain found a bride who shared his love of reading. The Langdon family library, or the more than 1,000 volumes of it that remain at Quarry Farm, represents the purchases and gifts to each other of four generations of Langdons. It would be surprising if Mark Twain had not read some of these books in the many summers he spent in Elmira. Only recently has an examination shown that he wrote in as well as read some of the volumes belonging to his in-laws.
When Mary Boewe and her husband, Charles Boewe, the Rafinesque scholar, stayed at Quarry Farm … they examined the library looking for specific titles of books that they knew Mark Twain and Livy had read. They found extensive Clemens marginalia in three works by Lecky…”
The link to the entire article is found here. The discovery by the Boewe’s was the first of many. Since the initial Lecky discovery, an additional forty-six volumes from the Quarry Farm library have been identified as containing marginal notes and/or inscriptions by Mark Twain. Given that over three decades have passed, there remains no indication that the scholarly potential has been exhausted. Within the last year, selections from the Quarry Farm library have been featured in the Mark Twain Journal (Fall 2018) and “new” marginal notes have been confirmed in Ida C. Langdon’s copy of Rubaiyat.
In 1993, another set of books, this time from Mark Twain’s personal library at Stormfield, came to Elmira College through Robert and Katharine Antenne, descendants of the Clemens’ housekeeper, Katy Leary. The Antenne’s donated 90 volumes, the majority containing inscriptions and/or marginalia from Mark Twain.
As a cornerstone of the Mark Twain collection, these two collections of books are an important resource and curiosity for Twain scholars and enthusiasts alike. Having been exhibited, used in presentations, and studied by many a scholar for many a publication, these volumes have begun to show signs of their extensive use. In an effort to care for the originals and provide greater access for further educational and scholarly research, the pages of marginalia are being made available at the following address: https://nyheritage.org/collections/mark-twain-collection. The complete CMTS Mark Twain Archive can be found here, along with other research opportunities afforded Quarry Farm Fellows.
Enjoy!