“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
Eutsey Concludes The 2025 Fall Trouble Begins Lecture Series This Wednesday
The 2025 Fall Trouble Begins Lecture Series presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies (CMTS) concludes at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 29 in the Quarry Farm Performance Barn, Located at 131 Crane Road, Elmira, the lectures are free and open to the public and...
Quarry Farm Symposium “Energy Studies” Talks Now Available
In a 2011 PMLA Editor’s Column “Literature in the Ages of Wood, Tallow, Coal, Whale Oil, Gasoline, Atomic Power, and Other Energy Sources” Patricia Yeager asked what might happen if, rather than organizing literary history by segments of chronological time (historical...
Quarry Farm Conversation on Twain in the 21st Century Now Available
The 2025 Fall Trouble Begins Lecture Series presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies (CMTS) continued its lecture series on October 16, 2025. The Trouble Begins and The Park Church Summer Lecture Series are made possible by the support of the Mark Twain...
2027 QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES
VISITING THE MARK TWAIN STUDY
ALL CMTS 2025 LECTURES
“ENERGY STUDIES”
TWELFTH QUARRY FARM SYMPOSIUM
MARK TWAIN DAY BY DAY
TROUBLE BEGINS
LECTURE ARCHIVES
ONLINE RESOURCES
FOR MARK TWAIN STUDIES
THE MARK TWAIN ARCHIVE
PHOTO GALLERY
RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS & STUDENTS
QUARRY FARM TESTIMONIALS
“FROM THE STUDY”
CMTS POST INDEX
PAST CONFERENCES & SYMPOSIA
KEEP MARK TWAIN’S LEGACY ALIVE
Upcoming Events & Calls for Papers
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: American Humor Studies Association
at 2026 ALA Conference
May 20-23, 2026 – Chicago, Illinois
CFP Deadline: January 15, 2026
CFP: W.D. Howells Society Panels at
2026 ALA Conference
May 20-23, 2026 – Chicago, Illinois
CFP Deadline: January 19, 2026
First Book Institute
Center for American Literary Studies (CALS) at Pennsylvania State University
Application Deadline: February 9, 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