This Giving Tuesday, Help Us Save Two Twain Artifacts!

You can play a role in the conservation of two vital pieces in The Mark Twain House & Museum collection!

• Six original woven cord and leather pockets of a Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company billiard table. The table was a gift to Mark Twain from Standard Oil magnate Henry Rogers and his wife. Billiards was a favorite pastime of Twain; he played frequently and seemed to find the game both relaxing and invigorating. The billiard table is on permanent display in the House, where it dominates the third-floor billiard room. The pockets are a very visible feature of the table. Due to their condition, the museum had them removed and their absence is noticeable to visitors.

• A tooled leather travel trunk with a canvas and leather cover that is stamped S.L. Clemens (for Samuel Langhorne Clemens) and that still bears many travel labels, including ones from Paris and New York. The trunk was on display in the visitor orientation exhibition in a section about Twain’s extensive international travels. It was also featured in a recent special exhibition about Twain’s travel and his travel writing. However, the trunk was removed from the exhibit due to its deteriorating condition. The trunk illuminates a significant and defining aspect of Mark Twain’s life and career. Twain was an avid traveler with a voracious curiosity about the lives and cultures of people in other countries around the world.

The Mark Twain House & Museum has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to conserve these two items. However, the grant only covers half the expense of the conservation and requires that we raise the rest in matching gifts. Your donation will go toward treatment of these two items by professional conservators. As a supporter of this conservation project, you will receive occasional updates on the progress of the project. If funds are raised over and above the cost of this project, the remaining funds will be applied to our Collections Fund to conserve other items.

Thank you for joining us in preserving Mark Twain's legacy!

Donate to Our Restoration Fund

Thursday, November 30 at 7pm ET
Film and television star Illeana Douglas on CONNECTICUT IN THE MOVIES: From Dream Houses to Dark Suburbia with Frank Rizzo (In-Person)

Told from the passionate perspective of the author who grew up here and filled with behind-the-scenes stories as well as her own personal snapshots of the places where these films were made, Illeana Douglas takes us on a cinematic road trip through Hollywood history and Connecticut geography.

In-Person Event: $10 for non-members, free for MTH&M Members.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE.

Tuesday, December 5 at 7pm ET
John Reeve on Soldier of Destiny: Slavery, Secession and the Redemption of Ulysses S. Grant with Manisha Sinha (Virtual)

Soldier of Destiny tells the story of Grant’s connection to slavery in far more detail than has been done in previous biographies. Grant went from being ambivalent about slavery to becoming one of the leading individuals responsible for emancipating the slaves. Grant’s life story is an almost inconceivable tale of redemption within the context of his fraught relationships with his antislavery father and his slaveholding wife. 

Virtual: Choose your own price for non-members. Free for members. 

LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE

Wednesday, December 6 at 7pm ET
THE TROUBLE BEGINS - A Free Screening of MONADNOCK: THE MOUNTAIN THAT STANDS ALONE followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Daniel J. White (In-Person)

Filmed over 10 years on and around the mountain, the documentary Monadnock: The Mountain that Stands Alone uses live cinematography, original music, and historical archival imagery, to tell the story of the original inhabitants of the region, those who were inspired by the mountain- Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Abbott Thayer, Amos Fortune, and the hard work of those to preserve the mountain-including money from children’s piggy banks to save “our” mountain. “

Mount Monadnock is the second most climbed mountain in the world, behind Mt. Fuji in Japan. Monadnock was revered by the Abenaki, ignored by the first European settlers, and beloved by authors and artists of the early 1900’s. Today the mountain is used as a right of passage when each year hundreds of schoolchildren climb to the summit to look at the vast communities that surround it, climbed daily by the hikers who hold Monadnock dear.

This is a FREE IN-PERSON event sponsored by CT Humanities and the Center for Mark Twain Studies in Elmira, New York. REGISTER HERE. 

Attendees are invited to come to the Museum center early to visit this year’s summer exhibition For Business or Pleasure? Twain’s Summer Sojourns which highlights the Clemens family’s American-based summer vacations, including a section on Sam and Jean’s two summers in Dublin, New Hampshire.

Wednesday, December 6 at 12pm ET
Ronald C. White on On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain with Larissa Vigue Picard (Virtual)

Award-winning historian Ronald C. White returns with this exciting new book, On Great Fields, a biography of General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the history-altering professor turned Civil War hero: from his upbringing in rural Maine to his tenacious, empathetic military leadership and his influential postwar public service. In this book, White captures the complex and inspiring man behind the hero. Heavily illustrated and featuring nine detailed maps, this gripping, impeccably researched portrait illuminates one of the most admired but least known figures in our nation’s bloodiest conflict. 

Virtual: Choose your own price for non-members. Free for members. 

LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE.

Thursday, December 14 at 7:30pm ET
Ghost Hunters ADAM BERRY and STEVE GONSALVES in Conversation! (In-Person at Immanuel Congregational Church across the street from The Mark Twain House).

Tickets: $75 includes the talk and a signed copy of both books. 

VIP Ticket : $200 includes the talk, both signed books, and a private ghost tour of the Twain House with Adam and Steve before the talk. Extremely limited!

LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE.

Upcoming Events

V = Virtual Event; IP = In-Person Event

November 30 - Connecticut in the Movies: From Dream Houses to Dark Suburbia with Illeana Douglas (IP)

December 5 - Soldier of Destiny: Slavery, Secession and the Redemption of Ulysses S. Grant with John Reeves (V)

December 6 - On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain with Ronald C. White (V)

December 6 - THE TROUBLE BEGINS: Monadnock: The Mountain that Stands Alone documentary and discussion with Daniel J. White (V)

December 12 - Shakespeare's White Others with David Sterling Brown (V)

December 14 - Ghost Hunters Adam Berry & Steve Gonsalves (IP)

December 15 & 16 - Get a Christmas Clue Tours (IP)

December 16 - Celebrate the Season with Twain!

- Clemens Christmases Home & Abroad Lecture (IP)

- Gilded Age Christmas Craft Workshops (IP)

- Home for the Holidays Living History Experience (IP)

December 19 - Linda Raedisch on The Secret History of Christmas Baking: Recipes and Stories on Tomb Offerings to Gingerbread Boys (V)

December 21 - Tim Rayborn on The Scary Book of Christmas Lore (V)

December 22 - Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar on America's Black Capital: How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy (IP)

To see all event information and registration, CLICK HERE.

To preorder books for our upcoming events, CLICK HERE. Signed books will be mailed after the event. Please note that we cannot ship outside of the U.S. at this time.

Your donation to The Mark Twain House & Museum helps us meet our mission to preserve the home and legacy of Mark Twain. Thank you for your generosity!

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