Saturday, July 17, 2010

Mark Twain House

Mark Twain (real name Samuel Clemens) is the author of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, among other American classics.  He lived in Hartford for 20 years, beginning in 1871.  Twain's most famous works were written while he lived in Hartford.

This is the house Twain built on Farmington Avenue in Hartford.  For information about the house, see Mark Twain House and Museum  The brick work is fascinating, and everywhere one looks, something else is jutting out.  The detailing is extensive.

I like visiting the house during the Christmas holiday season, when the festive decorations set off the luscious interior.

Twain was forced to leave the house in 1891 to make a European lecture tour, because his spending and poor investments made this house too expensive to maintain.  His favorite daughter Susie died of meningitis in the house in 1895, making it too painful to stay in Hartford, so Twain moved to upper New York state. 

Mark Twain died in 1910.

2 comments:

Shannon said...

I was just browsing looking for the Asylum shots and saw this and showed my husband (he's a carpenter) and he loved these Twain house shots. They are pretty cool.

Stefan Jansson said...

Sure is an interesting looking building.