Those not familiar with mentalfloss.com might find it interesting, even when their content doesn’t have anything to do with Mark Twain, but Twainians might find the following interview of mild interest. One of their writers interviewed me late last year and they just posted the result. I could not possibly have said anything about Twain that has not been said before, so skip the interview itself. However, they asked me to pick out some of my favorite things from my private collection, so I sent them a list of representative books and relics from which they selected eight to go with the interview. Two or three of them may be familiar to subscribers to the Mark Twain Journal, but the rest should be new to just about everyone.   

http://mentalfloss.com/photos/519265/8-literary-relics-worlds-largest-private-collection-mark-twain-memorabilia

Three footnotes:

1. The card table is the same one seen in the photo of Twain playing cards with Louise Paine, Joy Paine, and Dorothy Harvey at Stormfield. I think the wicker chair in that photo is now in Hannibal, and one of the ice-cream chairs may be at Hartford. But where is the deck of cards?

2. The inscribed Grant Memoirs in cloth is inscribed to a RR executive who arranged the special car for the Clemenses to/from Elmira every summer. The calling card leaning against the copy inscribed to John T. Lewis is that of Susan Crane. Lewis apparently used it as a bookmark.

3. Mark Twain’s white hair is NOT visible in the ribbon of the library key, unfortunately. What might appear to some to be a hair is only a loose thread from the ribbon.

Kevin
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Mac Donnell Rare Books
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