“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
The Facebook Files & The Gutenberg Parenthesis (A Tale of Today, Episode #14)
Originally posted by: Center for Mark Twain Studies on April 1, 2025Apple PodcastsSpotifyA two-part meditation on the history of journalism and the fate of investigative journalism under tech fascism begins with the model of Ida Tarbell, the epochal Wall Street...
The Gilded Network (A Tale of Today, Episode #13)
Originally posted by: Center for Mark Twain Studies on March 20, 2025Apple PodcastsSpotifyOur 150th anniversary celebration of Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” turns to political economies of mass media, then and now, beginning...
CFP: Mark Twain Circle at 2025 ALA in Boston, MA (May 21-24, 2025)
The Mark Twain Circle of America will host two panels at the 36th Annual ALA conference in Boston, May 21-24, 2025. Proposals are welcome from all scholars, graduate students to emeriti. Membership in the Circle by the time of ALA is required for panelists, but under...
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