Chapter 34 - Mark Twain Sites

Summary

The four most important Mark Twain centers in America are the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum, Hannibal, Missouri; the Mark Twain House and Museum, Hartford, Connecticut; the Center for Mark Twain Studies, Elmira, New York; and the Mark Twain Papers, Berkeley, California. The Boyhood Home is a restoration of the Clemens home in Hannibal, and Hannibal itself is dedicated to Twain’s life and work, especially The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The museum has artifacts from Twain’s life, as well as exhibits on the history of slaveholding in Hannibal. The Mark Twain House and Museum includes a painstakingly accurate restoration of the sumptuous Hartford mansion where Sam and Olivia Clemens raised their three daughters, as well as a museum and teaching center. The Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College includes the octagonal study where Twain wrote many of his best works while spending summers with his sister-in-law, as well as a large library, and Quarry Farm, the hillside house where the Clemens family summered in the 1870s and 1880s. The Mark Twain Papers at the University of California, Berkeley houses the largest collection of Twain manuscripts, letters, and other documents, with editors who continue their work of producing definitive editions of Twain’s works. The center also welcomes scholars for research in the archives.