Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name:

Mark Twain

was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

 

The Karpeles Manuscript Library will be celebrating the Centennial of his death (1910) starting in 2010 and continuing into 2011 and 2012.

 

Highlighting the exhibit will be his manuscript of the dramatic version of Tom Sawyer. Equally important will be a letter in which Twain compares the characters of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. This letter has been described as "one of the best statements about the character of Huck Finn".

 

For the first time, the page of the novel "The Gilded Age" where the Pseudonym "Mark Twain" is revealed, will be on exhibit.

The illustrators of Twains books will also be included in this exhibit along with some of their original illustrations. Illustrations shown will include Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and Jim, the slave.

 

Twain's love of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat is evident if one examines the number of copies and various editions that Twain owned.  Twain's actual thoughts on the content of the great poem differ considerably from what one might guess ... for when Twain wrote his own Rubaiyat,  it was refused by the publisher as being obscene. Today, one would be hard pressed to find anything in the poem even slightly risque.  On the other hand, his humor is at its best.  For example, where the original poem calls out :

"Wake!",

Twain urges :

"Sleep! ...  Ignore the rising sun while you may".

 

Mark Twain's Rubaiyat was published by The Karpeles Manuscript Library in 1983.