“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
Grace King: The Clemens Family’s Friend from New Orleans
Originally posted by: Miki Pfeffer on July 19, 2022 Editor’s Note: One of the Center for Mark Twain Studies most important strategic goals is service to the general public. One way that CMTS fulfills this endeavor is the creation of Mark Twain related resource pages...
Mark Twain’s Modernism
Originally posted by: Stephen Pasqualina on October 10, 2019In a less-than-famous book titled Green Hills of Africa (1935), Ernest Hemingway famously declared that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” Though he...
Twain For Teachers: Market Your Own Patent Medicine
Originally posted by: John Pascal on July 13, 2017 Editor’s Note: This is the first in what we hope will be an ongoing series focused on adapting Twain to the classroom. If you have an assignment, activity, lesson plan, syllabus design, or pedagogical narrative which...
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