I was out riding my bike this morning, testing its new tires, when my phone rang.  It was my friend Anne, who suggested that we visit the Mark Twain House in Hartford today.  I had been thinking recently of going on this excursion, for a number of reasons.  First, my reading group picked The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as our summer book; second, this year marks the centennial of Twain’s death; and third, I read Huckleberry Finn years ago and loved it (the closing line of this American classic, “But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest,” was the quote in my email signature file for many months).  Insofar as Twain’s Hartford home is practically in the neighborhood, there’s no excuse not to visit.  “Let’s do it,” I said.

Around 11:30 Anne and I met up in Sturbridge, where I left my car in the Host Hotel parking lot.  We took her car and set off via I-84 for Hartford; about an hour later, we found ourselves in the parking lot next to the Visitor’s Center at 351 Farmington Avenue.  We were both hungry by then, so we ate a quick lunch at a nearby Subway, then we were back at the Museum for a 2 pm guided tour of the Main House (the house is open for guided tours only).  At 3 pm, we decided to do the half-hour Kitchen and Servants Wing Tour.  To round out our afternoon, we toured the orientation exhibit on Twain’s life and work in the Aetna Gallery and the current year-long Legacy exhibit.  Around 4 pm, we sat down in the auditorium where a documentary on the July 1944 Hartford Circus Fire was showing; it was so compelling that we stayed to watch the hour-long film.  Just before the Museum closed at 5:30, we took a quick swing through the Gift Shop.

Our docents were both very good, and although $19 for both tours is a bit steep, the house was certainly worth seeing; it has been beautifully restored and includes mostly period pieces as well as a few original items.  In 1871, a year after his marriage to Olivia Langdon, Twain moved the family to Hartford; in 1874, they moved into this 3-story, 19-room, $40,000 Victorian mansion, where they lived until 1891.  The house was designed by architect Edward Tuckerman Potter, with interiors by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his partners in Associated Artists.  These 17 years in Hartford were some of the happiest and most productive years of Twain’s life.  Here he doted on his family, entertained friends, and wrote many of his most well-known works.  From the Carriage House where the horses were kept, we’re looking at the Main House:

Here is a view of the house from the entrance to the servants’ wing:

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or Mark Twain as he called himself, was larger than life: he was an accomplished printer, riverboat pilot, journalist, novelist, lecturer, and humorist.  Although a series of bad investments and other factors led to personal bankruptcy in the early 1890s, he eventually paid off his debts, and after travelling abroad for many years, he returned to the United States and lived comfortably in New York City, and then finally in Redding, Connecticut where he died the year Halley’s Comet returned.  Volume One of his three-volume Autobiography is scheduled to be published later this year; it should make for some interesting reading.

So what did I learn, or re-learn, about Mark Twain?  I hadn’t realized that his marriage propelled him into the wealthier class of American society; later, his celebrity as an author and speaker helped keep him there.  I was also impressed with his devotion to his wife and three daughters, as well as with his warm relationships with the servants; I didn’t necessarily picture him as a family man.  Finally, I came to realize that he was a disciplined and hard-working craftsman; as a writer, his job was to write, so that’s what he did, day after day, up on the third floor of his Hartford home.  I have no doubt that he was an exceptionally talented writer and keen observer of human foibles and frailties, but he also had the strength of character to make the most of his gifts.