Mark Twain Project Online and the 100th Anniversary of Twain’s Death

By Elise Proulx
Publishing Group Outreach & Marketing Coordinator

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the death of one of America’s favorite writers, thinkers, and humorists: Mark Twain. The Mark Twain Project Online – a collaboration between the Mark Twain Papers and Project of The Bancroft Library, CDL’s Publishing Group, and UC Press – includes a wealth of materials for Twain fanatics eager to celebrate the author’s legacy by combing through some 2,300 letters Twain wrote between 1853 and 1880 (including nearly 100 facsimiles of originals). A recent blog post in the Chronicle of Higher Education lauded the project, calling it “a massive online archive of the writer’s manuscripts and letters and other Twainiana.”

Hundreds of the letters included in the Mark Twain Project Online were warmly written to his wife, Olivia Clemens, and illustrate why Twain is so beloved despite his often acid tongue. One such letter begins, “My Dear dear dear dear dear dear dear Livy (that is the tamest word that ever I saw—you have to repeat it 6 or 7 times to make it express anything).” The collection also includes digital editions of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (2003) and Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians (1989).

For more information, including the history of the project and contributor credits, see the “About MTPO” page at http://www.marktwainproject.org/about_mtpo.shtml.