Clemens made several trips to Bermuda in the final years of his life, in hopes that the warm climate would have a positive effect on his health. He is pictured here swimming with Helen Allen, daughter of his host, William H. Allen.
These two handwritten documents on a single folded sheet are some of the final writings in Clemens’s hand. Clemens spent the final months of his life at the home of William H. Allen in Bermuda. In the first document, Clemens writes out a receipt to…
Clemens dedicated The Prince and the Pauper to his daughters, Clara and Susy. This copy has a bound-in photograph of the two children, bearing inscriptions from both Samuel and Livy Clemens on the verso, facing the dedication page. After Susy’s death…
Clemens writes to his daughter, describing the program of events at the ceremony for the awarding of his honorary doctoral degree from Oxford University.
Following a heart attack in 1902, Olivia Clemens’ doctors advised that she avoid seeing her husband or other family members lest the excitement of visitors cause her condition to worsen. Samuel Clemens communicated with her via notes during this…
When Olivia Clemens’s childhood friend Clara Spaulding was married in 1886, Clemens honored her with a pair of horse-car tickets, along with this cover letter and a “loving though humble and squalid poem.” The poem humorously describes Christopher…
When Olivia Clemens’s childhood friend Clara Spaulding was married in 1886, Clemens honored her with a pair of horse-car tickets, along with this cover letter and a “loving though humble and squalid poem.” The poem humorously describes Christopher…
In this letter to his publisher, Twain humorously disparages Albert S. Evans, who had authored a book about his travels in Mexico, while requesting research materials for Roughing It: “Colonel Albert S. Evans!. . .Who made him a Colonel? . . . A…
In this letter to his publisher, Twain humorously disparages Albert S. Evans, who had authored a book about his travels in Mexico, while requesting research materials for Roughing It: “Colonel Albert S. Evans!. . .Who made him a Colonel? . . . A…
Clemens writes to his contemporary Robert Barr, praising his novel A Woman Intervenes (1896) and reflecting on the qualities of a good novel: “honest, simple, straight-forward, unostentatious, unbruffled; barren of impertinences & familiarities;…