Australian Mark Twain Society

Elmira Turns it on For Twain Scholars

In August 2009, it was my privilege to present a paper at the Sixth International Conference into Mark Twain Studies at Elmira (upstate New York). The conference was a wonderful experience, rubbing shoulders for three days with many of the biggest names in Twain scholarship.

Elmira College boasts a handsome campus, and has been linked with Mark Twain for nearly 140 years. Twain's wife, Olivia (nee Langdon), attended Elmira College in the 1850s, and Twain himself did much of his best-known writing at the Langdon family's Quarry Farm, a few miles up the road from the college.

Mid-summer's celebrations at Quarry Farm for the Sixth International Conference into
Mark Twain Studies (6-8 August 2009).

Part of the Elmira 2009 experience included a memorable mid-summer night's eve BBQ at Quarry Farm, accompanied by banjo-playing minstrels, fine food and ice-cold beer. The BBQ capped of a stimulating three days of Twain introspection, where new friends were made and many new insights into Twain's world were explored for the first time.

One of many highlights of the conference for me was to meet with John Pascal, one of the world's very few Artemus Ward scholars. John's book "Artemus Ward: The Gentle Humorist" was published in March 2009 and presents a contemporary view of one of the most neglected humorists of the 19th century. If you hunger for information about the humorist of the Western Plains, John's book is a must-have.

But I digress. For someone who also finds Twain intoxicatingly attractive, Elmira 2009 surpassed my expectations. Almost every person I spoke with had written an authoritative book on some aspect of Twain. Scholar Prof. John Bird shot a home movie at the conference, craftily asking unsuspecting delegates why they studied Mark Twain. The results of this deceptively simple line of questioning can see be seen on YouTube.

As for my paper, I'm pleased to report it was received favourably, and formed part of a final session that included two wonderful presentations by Alex Effen and Mark Dawidziak. The full program can be viewed online here.

My paper, "Mark Twain's Melbourne Mystery Unmasked", endeavoured to forge new ground in the search for understanding of the events in Australia during the 1870s that led to reports of a Twain imposter living and dying down-under before 1881. Until now, few scholars have seriously examined the reference in Twain's final travel book "Following the Equator" to an Australian Twain imposter. My paper suggested that Twain's literary allusion to an imposter operating in Australia in the 1870s was based on fact; I also identified the man I consider to be almost certainly responsible for the mystery. With any luck, I hope to publish these findings soon.

In conclusion, it is fitting perhaps to make some brief mention of my trip to the Clemens/Langdon family grave at Elmira, courtesy of two kind Twain scholars. To my surprise, I found the modest assemblage of small gravestones to be poignantly moving. When a visitor stands beside Jean Clemens's grave and reads the inscription her father lovingly had inscribed upon the stone, it is impossible not to be moved by Twain's loss and pain, more than a century ago.

Ron Hohenhaus
Australian Mark Twain Society

The loving dedication inscribed on Jean Clemens's grave at Elmira Cemetery (NYS).

This page is always under construction :)
Last modified: 3 Sep 2009