“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
Dispatches From Quarry Farm: Autumn Arrives
Originally posted by: Steve Webb on September 4, 2018Caretaker Steve Webb and his son are the only year-round residents of Quarry Farm. Steve provides us with occasional, not always altogether reliable, updates from the premises. The turning of the seasons, the first...
Dispatches from Quarry Farm: Huck! Speak Up. We Need You.
Originally posted by: Steve Webb on December 18, 2017Caretaker Steve Webb and his son are the only year-round residents of Quarry Farm. Steve provides us with occasional, not always altogether reliable, updates from the premises. The word and all it carries. My son...
A Disturbing Passion? : Mark Twain & The Angelfish
Originally posted by: Laura Skandera Trombley on December 11, 2017While I appreciate a sensational headline as much as anyone, and there are new bombshells arriving with disturbing daily frequency, when a friend sent me one that recently appeared in The Paris Review,...
2027 QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES
VISITING THE MARK TWAIN STUDY
ALL CMTS 2025 LECTURES
All CFPs for 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
First Book Institute
Center for American Literary Studies (CALS) at Pennsylvania State University
Application Deadline: February 9, 2026
J19 Online Forum on “Big Jim and the White Boy”
by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson
February 10, 2026
Registration Information Available
CFP: American Humor Studies Association at Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies (Paper Panel and Roundtable)
July 30 – August 1 – Elmira, New York
CFP Deadline: February 13, 2026
CFP: Mark Twain Circle at Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies (Two Paper Panels and Roundtable)
July 30 – August 1 – Elmira, New York
CFP Deadline: February 15, 2026
CFP: Elmira 2026: The Tenth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies
July 30 – August 1 – Elmira, New York
CFP Deadline: February 20, 2026
CFP: The Second Quarry Farm Graduate Student Workshop: From Seminar Paper to Academic Article”
August 3 – August 7 – Elmira, New York
CFP Deadline: February 20, 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
Mark Twain Circle at 2026 ALA Conference
May 20-23, 2026 – Chicago, Illinois
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