“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
A Loving & Clairvoyant Parasite: George Steiner in The Archives of Eden
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on February 6, 2020It would be grossly inaccurate to call George Steiner, who passed away earlier this week, an Americanist. His reading was cosmopolitan, certainly, and though it included the literature of the nation where he spent...
150 Years of The Revised Catechism
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on September 27, 2021One of my personal favorite sketches from Mark Twain’s early career is “The Revised Catechism,” published 150 years ago today. Though it is but a short, jokey parody of the American gospel of greed, there is...
150 Years Ago Mark Twain Celebrated New Years Eve By Debating How Drunk He Had Been During the Preceding Year & Listening to Charles Dickens Read David Copperfield With His Future Wife
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on December 29th, 2017 1868 was a pretty important year for Sam Clemens. Over the course of it, he would turn the Quaker City cruise of the preceding year into a lucrative cross-country lecture tour and what would prove to be a...
2027 QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES
VISITING THE MARK TWAIN STUDY
ALL CMTS 2025 LECTURES
Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference
on the State of Mark Twain Studies & Graduate Student Workshop
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
Mark Twain Circle at 2026 ALA Conference
May 20-23, 2026 – Chicago, Illinois
Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference
on the State of Mark Twain Studies
July 30 – August 1 – Elmira, New York
The Second Quarry Farm Graduate Student Workshop: From Seminar Paper to Academic Article”
August 3 – August 7 – Elmira, New York
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