“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
Life, In Purgatory (A Twainiac Quarantine Diary)
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on April 13, 2020 Mark Twain’s parable of social distancing is called “Was It Heaven? Or Hell?” (1902). At the center of the tale are a pair of amateur nurses pressed into service by tragic circumstances. Hannah and Hester Gray must...
Life, In Arbitrage (A Twainiac Quarantine Diary)
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on March 30, 2020Samuel Clemens spent almost the entirety of Secession Winter aboard the Alonzo Child, a steamboat traversing the Mississippi between St. Louis and New Orleans. Reading Benjamin Griffin’s account of this period...
In Memory of Noted Twain Scholar, Carl Dolmetsch, Listen to His 1988 Trouble Begins Lecture
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on June 27, 2019 Carl Richard Dolmetsch, Jr. passed away earlier this month. He was 94. Dolmetsch wrote an influential book in Mark Twain Studies, “Our Famous Guest”: Mark Twain in Vienna, which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize...
2026 QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES
VISITING THE MARK TWAIN STUDY
2025 Fall Trouble Begins Lectures
“ENERGY STUDIES”
TWELFTH QUARRY FARM SYMPOSIUM
MARK TWAIN DAY BY DAY
TROUBLE BEGINS
LECTURE ARCHIVES
ONLINE RESOURCES
AND INFORMATION PAGES
FOR MARK TWAIN STUDIES
THE MARK TWAIN ARCHIVE
PHOTO GALLERY
RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS & STUDENTS
PAST QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIPS
“FROM THE STUDY”
CMTS POST INDEX
PAST CONFERENCES & SYMPOSIA
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