From the collection: a first edition of #HuckleberryFinn and a salesman’s prospectus. Mallory, our Assistant Curator, is sharing two pieces of the story: The prospectus is basically the 1885 pitch deck: sample pages, illustrations, and the selling spiel.

Happy birthday, Huck! First released in the U.S. on Feb. 18, 1885. Still causing a commotion, which is the highest compliment. That’s 141 years of troublemaking, river-current momentum, and American storytelling. Come see where Twain did part of the writing: right here in Hartford. #HuckleberryFinn

Need a Valentine? SWM, 190 years old, 5'9"ish, medium build, not particularly athletic. Love to travel, read, eat, and swap stories. I’m a smoker, but you need not be. Enjoy a glass of warm scotch, billiards, and I come with a 25-room mansion in Hartford. 💝

This #BlackHistoryMonth, we’re saying thank you. Because of you, we completed the George Griffin Headstone Fund and will place a permanent monument at George Griffin’s New York City gravesite.

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" #MarkTwain

Outside: nature’s ice sculpture exhibit. 🧊 Inside: warm rooms, good stories, and zero icicles. Come visit. marktwainhouse.org/visit/ #MarkTwainHouse #MarkTwain #Hartford #Museum #Connecticut

The Mark Twain House & Museum is honored to welcome @ibramxk.bsky.social, National Book Award–winning historian and author of How to Be an Antiracist, for a special evening on his new book, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age.

"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either." - Following the Equator, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar #MarkTwain

"That desire which is in us all to better other people's condition by having them think as we think." - What is Man #MarkTwain

New Sam’s Shorts is live, and it is a spicy one. 🦅 This month’s excerpt is “The American Gentleman” (1906), where Mark Twain weighs in on Theodore Roosevelt and what “American manners” look like when power is involved. Tell us what you think: marktwainhouse.org/sams-shorts/ #SamsShorts

"To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself..."

"It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage...

Mark Twain House & Museum—Twain’s Midwestern books, written in his beautiful and eccentric Hartford home. #LiteraryLandscapes by @jerklamerk.bsky.social. #MarkTwain #Hartford #Connecticut @marktwainhouse.bsky.social newterritorymag.com/literary-lan...

The house is dressed for the season, and the details are worth slowing down for. 🎅 Step inside #MarkTwain’s Hartford home and let the holidays do what they do best: make history feel close. Plan your visit and join us for a tour. www.marktwainhouse.org

We have two author conversations lined up for January 2026 at The Mark Twain House, one virtual and one in person. Register: www.marktwainhouse.org/event/in-the... #AuthorEvents #BookTalk #MarkTwainHouse #Hartford #Connecticut #NewEngland #LiteraryEvents

"As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day." - Speech, 8 March 1902 #MarkTwain #MarkTwainQuotes

Step into Mark Twain’s Gilded Age home and spend an afternoon writing by the glow of a Victorian Christmas. 🎄✍️ On Sunday, December 14, 2025, poet and master teaching artist Victoria Nordlund will lead a cozy, generative Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop in the Twain Library, decorated for the season.

🎉 Happy 190th Birthday, Mark Twain! ✒️ Today we celebrate the life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens — better known as Mark Twain — born on this day in 1835. His stories, humor, and sharp observations still shape how we think about America, imagination, and ourselves.

December is packed with incredible author events at The Mark Twain House and Museum. Join us as we welcome leading scholars and storytellers who bring history, literature, and the Gilded Age to life.

“The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another.” - Mark Twain’s Autobiography #marktwain #literature #marktwainquotes #compliments #kindness

🖋 Grief Poetry Workshop at The Mark Twain House & Museum Writing can help us heal. Join poet and master teaching artist Victoria Nordlund for a special workshop that uses poetry to explore loss, reflection, and connection in a supportive setting.

🎃 Halloween visit at the Mark Twain House! We loved welcoming Lily Green and her family visiting from Jamestown Middle School in North Carolina, home to four student “houses,” including one named Twain! We think the “sorting hat” definitely did its job well. 🎩

Gilded Age fit check. All white everything. ✨ #TwainBear #MarkTwain

“When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.” - Mark Twain (The Prince and the Pauper) #MarkTwain #MarkTwainQuotes #Books #Literature

We Have a Winner! 🎉🏆 The Mark Twain House & Museum proudly announces Ben Shattuck as the recipient of the 2025 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award for his stunning story collection, The History of Sound (Viking). @vikingbooks.bsky.social @penguinbooksusa.bsky.social

Just posted this up at @marktwainhouse.bsky.social and you can read and respond here. It's an excerpt from "What Have The Police Been Doing?" published in San Francisco, in 1866, and it's a Twain piece I've wanted to share in this forum for years. It felt like the right moment.

“The devil’s aversion to holy water is a light matter compared with a despot’s dread of a newspaper that laughs.” - “The American Press,” first printed in Mark Twain: Press Critic, University of California Press, 2003.

✨ Free Event This Friday, 9/19! ✨ Join us at The Mark Twain House & Museum, in person or online, for a conversation with John Warner, author of More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.

The Mark Twain House & Museum family just got a little bigger. ❤️ Please join us in welcoming our newest guides! They’ll be leading tours, answering questions, and helping to share Twain’s timeless words with every visitor who walks through our doors.

"Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied." - "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" Visit the home where Twain's wit still speaks to the world The Mark Twain House & Museum #MarkTwain #MarkTwainHouse #MarkTwainQuotes #TwainQuotes

They call it "bed rot," these days. He called it Friday. #BedRot #MarkTwain #MarkTwainHouse #ChillinLikeAVillain

We’re thrilled to announce the 2025 Shortlist for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award (Mark Twain Award)! 📖 This year’s list spans voices, regions, and stories that shine new light on the American experience.

📢 FREE EVENT! Join us in-person or via livestream on September 19, 7PM (ET) for MORE THAN WORDS: HOW TO THINK ABOUT WRITING IN THE AGE OF AI. #AI #AuthorEvent #MarkTwainHouse #Literature #Connecticut #Hartford #ArtificialIntelligence @erinbartram.bsky.social

“Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of credit?” — The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) #MarkTwain #TwainQuotes #MarkTwainHouse #GildedAge

Another day, another poem from the @marktwainhouse.bsky.social youth summer writing program. The students take a trip to the Wadsworth Atheneum to practice ekphrastic writing, and this was inspired by "Lady St. John as Hebe" by Sir Thomas Lawrence. journey75.org/2025/whisper...

For 12 years @marktwainhouse.bsky.social has been running this program and the writing is *always* amazing.

Last week, our Nook Farm Writers Collaborative teens wrapped up the 2025 program with a showcase performance and the publication of the summer 2025 issue of their literary magazine. Read (and listen) to their work at www.journey75.org 📺 www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRQt...

I am still haunted by this poem, "The Myth Was Never The Unicorn," written by one of the teens who participated in the creative writing program at the museum this summer. A reminder that girls are always aware. Read the full piece and listen to the author recite it: journey75.org/2025/the-myt...

“The darling mispronunciations of childhood!—dear me, there's no music that can touch it; and how one grieves when it wastes away and dissolves into correctness, knowing it will never visit his bereaved ear again.” —from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court #MarkTwain #MarkTwainHouse

Our Nook Farm Voices students had the chance to meet with novelist Andrea Ezerins this week, who shared her journey to publication, what it takes to stay motivated through the writing process, and how publishing varies across genres and presses.

Last night we had the pleasure of hosting the one and only Gary Shteyngart at The Mark Twain House for an evening of sharp wit, big laughs, and brilliant storytelling.

Last week, our Nook Farm Voices students explored the galleries of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and let their creativity soar. 🖼️ As part of their writing intensive, students engaged in ekphrastic poetry: vivid, imaginative responses to works of art.

You've never heard history like this 👂📜 Daryn and Mallory, our resident curators (and accidental ASMR stars), take you on a soft-sounding journey through the Mark Twain House - bloopers and all. #ASMRkTwain #MarkTwain #MarkTwainHouse #ASMR #History #Museums #MuseumLife #BehindTheScenes

🖤📝 Blackout Poetry, Lit Up At yesterday’s Nook Farm Writers Collaborative session, our young writers explored a powerful poetic form: blackout poetry.

Missed our unforgettable evening with Ron Chernow discussing his new Mark Twain biography? You can now watch the full conversation on C-SPAN and BookTV. Watch here: www.c-span.org/program/amer... #RonChernow #MarkTwain #CSPAN #BookTV #History

🚗✉️ Twain on the Mountain… and back again! Our brilliant conservators, Daryn and Mallory, recently made the trek to Onteora, NY to return a few cherished items and brought back more than just empty hands! 📸 #MarkTwainHouse #OnteoraClub #CatskillsHistory #MuseumLife #ConservationChronicles

"At first, I had thought someone had put a mirror across the street. But it wasn’t a mirror. She had a mole under her left lip...and an unearthly wide grin." 🪞

Super excited to be in conversation with Gary Shteyngart at the @marktwainhouse.bsky.social on July 23 about his new novel, VERA, OR FAITH. Join us! #booksky ctexaminer.com/events/voice...

We might know the guy. Last night’s @jeopardyofficial.bsky.social featured a question about an author who made fans wait 100 years to read his memoirs. Yes, that would be our guy, Samuel Clemens.

During the summer of 2023, Cassie Goundrey was a member of the Nook Farm Writers Collaborative, the museum’s summer creative writing program for Connecticut teens. Now she’s back at the museum, working as an intern with the 2025 Collaborative.