“We are perched on a hill top that overlooks a little world of green valleys, shining rivers, sumptuous forests and billowy uplands veiled in the haze of distance. We have no neighbors. It is the quietest of all quiet places, and we are hermits that eschew caves and live in the sun.”
~ Mark Twain
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR MARK TWAIN STUDIES
Mark Twain wrote his most famous works in an octagonal study overlooking Elmira, NY, the hometown of his wife, Olivia. For more than two decades the Clemens family summered with Olivia’s siblings at Quarry Farm. All are buried at the nearby Woodlawn Cemetery. In 1983, both Quarry Farm and the study, since relocated to the Elmira College campus, became part of the Center for Mark Twain Studies. CMTS is dedicated to serving an international community of scholars interested in a approaching Mark Twain Studies from a variety of different approaches and disciplines.
RECENT ARTICLES
“The Texan Steer”: A Rediscovered Sketch by Mark Twain?
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on February 12, 2019On August 27, 1870, a sketch appeared in the Leavenworth Daily Commercial with Mark Twain’s byline. So far as I can tell, this sketch, “The Texan Steer,” has never appeared in any collection of Twain’s work or...
The Park Church Culture Into Which Mark Twain Married: An Introduction to “Mark Twain’s Music Box”
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on February 11, 2019EDITOR”S NOTE: The following was offered as an introduction to the performance of “Mark Twain’s Music Box” at the Park Church in Elmira on February 8th, 2019.117 years ago this week, in February of 1902, Mark...
The Nastiest Things Mark Twain Said About Teddy Roosevelt
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on August 31st, 2017Yesterday, Los Angeles Review of Books published a piece I’ve been working on intermittently since the Amazon-Whole Foods merger was announced in mid-June. Please check it out.One of the implicit theses of the...
2027 QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES
VISITING THE MARK TWAIN STUDY
ALL CMTS 2025 LECTURES
All CFPs for Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference
on the State of Mark Twain Studies & Graduate Student Workshop
MARK TWAIN DAY BY DAY
TROUBLE BEGINS
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PAST CONFERENCES & SYMPOSIA
KEEP MARK TWAIN’S LEGACY ALIVE
Upcoming Events & Calls for Papers
First Book Institute
Center for American Literary Studies (CALS) at Pennsylvania State University
Application Deadline: February 9, 2026
J19 Online Forum on “Big Jim and the White Boy”
by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson
February 10, 2026
Registration Information Available
CFP: American Humor Studies Association at Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies (Paper Panel and Roundtable)
July 30 – August 1 – Elmira, New York
CFP Deadline: February 13, 2026
CFP: Mark Twain Circle at Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies (Two Paper Panels and Roundtable)
July 30 – August 1 – Elmira, New York
CFP Deadline: February 15, 2026
CFP: Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies
July 30 – August 1 – Elmira, New York
CFP Deadline: February 20, 2026
CFP: The Second Quarry Farm Graduate Student Workshop: From Seminar Paper to Academic Article”
August 3 – August 7 – Elmira, New York
CFP Deadline: February 20, 2026
“Twainian Regeneration: Adaptations of the Works, Life, and Legacy of Mark Twain” at NEMLA
2026 Northeast Modern Language Association Conference
Pittsburgh, PA – March 5-8, 2026
Mark Twain Circle at 2026 ALA Conference
May 20-23, 2026 – Chicago, Illinois
CFP: The Thirteenth Quarry Farm Symposium –
“Black Childhood and Children’s Literature in the Nineteenth Century”
October 16 and October 17 – Elmira, New York
Accepting applictions until roster is filled