"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.

"As we sing songs off pitch and dad wraps his arms around mom’s waist and we are full to the brim with love and latkes." 🎶

From the first stanza of a haiku suite called "Love is Icarus" written in the mahogany suite of the Mark Twain House. "Buzz of bees in air Destined for sap of roses Love in sight yet far" 🐝🌹

📬 From the MTH Archives: A 1977 T-Shirt Pitch Gone (Beautifully) Overboard On June 13, 1977, The Perfection Form Company sent us this... shall we say... spirited prototype of a Mark Twain-themed t-shirt.

This week's CBS Sunday Morning segment harkens back to the golden age of American letters, with a visit to the Mark Twain House & Museum and a conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning author Ron Chernow.

"The Witch whispered her spells into chipped teacups, stirring secrets into silence. Her hair was black yarn stitched tight to her scalp with metallic thread, like thoughts sewn shut." 🧙‍♀️🍵

"Once satisfied with its normal appearance, the creature will open the door, challenging the curious human to a light game of pool. That is when the hunt begins…" 🚪🎱🟢

"The room wears pink She’s a beautiful lady who wears the wallpaper As a flowy dress blowing in the wind The chandelier diamond earrings" 🩷💎

Our summer teen writing program started this week. They start each day by writing in a room of the historic home. This morning, one of them gave us this line: “I am writing to you from a room that feels like a dream held together by velvet, mahogany, and memory.”

"When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction." 🐈 Mark Twain - An Incident

First post. Testing the sky. Mark Twain once said, "When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear, and life stands explained." - Notebook, 1898. We're the house where he lived, wrote, dreamed, and probably would've had some thoughts about posting into the void. #MarkTwainHouse #Museum