The Hartford House Hosts a Conversation with Susan K. Harris, Accomplished Mark Twain Scholar

Posted on by Joe Lemak

In 1896, Mark Twain hopped a boat, a camel, a train, a dog-cart, and a donkey to travel the world.

Susan Harris followed in his wake when she decided to use Twain’s book Following the Equator as inspiration for her travels to Australia, India, and South Africa, resulting in her book Mark Twain, the World, and Me: “Following the Equator,” Then and Now. Deftly blending history, biography, literary criticism, reportage, and travel memoir, Harris gives readers a unique take on one of America’s most widely studied writers. Structured as a series of interlocking essays written in the first person, this engaging volume draws on Twain’s insights into the histories and cultures of Australia, India, and South Africa and weaves them into timely reflections on the legacies of those countries today.

Join the Mark Twain House and Museum (Hartford, CT.) virtually on Thursday, August 6, at 5:30 p.m. for the next installment of Trouble at Home, when Susan Harris will discuss her travels, her book, and the Mark Twain Circle of America. She will be interviewed by the Mark Twain House’s Beatrice Fox Auerbach Director of Collections, Jodi DeBruyne.

This program is free to attend. CLICK HERE to register. 

All previous 2020 Trouble at Home conversations can be found in the CMTS Trouble Begins Archive.

Professor Harris has a long relationship with the Center for Mark Twain Studies and in 2005 was awarded the John S. Tuckey Award. This recognition is given to a Mark Twain Studies scholar who has demonstrated exemplary service to the Center for Mark Twain Studies.

She has lectured for the Center for Mark Twain Studies numerous times. Many of these have been archived, including:

(Click on Professor Harris’s name to listen to the lecture)

  • Susan K. Harris, “Four Ways to Kill a Mackerel: Mark Twain and Laura Hawkins” (November 3, 1988 – Quarry Farm)
  • Susan K. Harris, “Overcoming Sin: The Audiences for Mark Twain’s ‘Hadleyburg’” (July 23, 1990 – Quarry Farm)
  • Susan K. Harris, “Olivia Langdon Clemens’s Reading” (April 29, 1992 – Quarry Farm)
  • Susan K. Harris, “Love Texts: The Role of Books in the Courtship of Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain” (November 13, 1996 – Quarry Farm)
  • Susan K. Harris, “Mark Twain and the Philippine-American War: “Hogwash” and “Pious Hypocrisy” (May 30, 2012 – Quarry Farm Barn)
  • Susan K. Harris, “Searching For The Ornithorhynchus: Mark Twain and Animal Conservation” (October 7, 2015 – Quarry Farm Barn)