“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
Mark Twain’s Portfolio: Hell-Hound Rogers, Anaconda Copper, & The Spider Aristocracy of Finance
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on June 19, 2019EDITOR’S NOTE: Each installment of “Mark Twain’s Portfolio” can be read as a stand-alone essay, though together they will produce a more comprehensive account of Twain’s financial life. If you enjoy what follows,...
Mark Twain’s 43rd Thanksgiving
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on November 21, 2017In 1905, Thanksgiving Day fell on the 30th of November, which also happened to be Sam Clemens’s 70th birthday. In his autobiography, he claims an effort was made “to get the President to select another day for the...
Mark Twain Wishes “A Happy New Year” With 1876 Postcard
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on December 30, 2016The above image, courtesy of The Mark Twain Project at UC-Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, comes from an engraved greeting card Twain circulated in January, 1876. William Dean Howells, upon receiving one, described...
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TWELFTH QUARRY FARM SYMPOSIUM
MARK TWAIN DAY BY DAY
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KEEP MARK TWAIN’S LEGACY ALIVE
Upcoming Events & Calls for Papers
CFP: “Formats and Institutions of American Literary Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century”
The volume is projected to appear in 2027 in the ANGLIA book series published by De Gruyter (Berlin)
CFP Deadline: October 31, 2025
Mark Twain Panel at 2025 South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference
November 6-8, 2025 – Atlanta, Georgia
CFP: “Periodicals, Period: Humor and Nineteenth-Century American Newspapers and Magazines”
Special Issue of Studies in American Humor
CFP Deadline: January 1, 2026
Upcoming Fellowship Opportunities at
American Antiquarian Society
Application Deadline: January 15, 2026
CFP: “Mark Twain and Adaptation” Paper Panel at PAMLA
November 20-23, 2026 – San Francisco, California
CFP Deadline: “First Come, First Serve” Basis
CFP: W.D. Howells Society Panels at
2026 ALA Conference
May 20-23, 2026 – Chicago, Illinois
CFP Deadline: January 19, 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