The Center for Mark Twain Studies is pleased to announce the posting of
the following audio file from our Fall 2008 Series:

Did Quarry Farm Matter?

Jeffrey Steinbrink,
Franklin & Marshall College

We'll never know, but someone could argue, and probably has, that Mark
Twain would have been Mark Twain no matter what. Would have been Mark
Twain even if he -- or even if Samuel Clemens -- had never met Charlie
or Olivia Langdon or visited Elmira or Quarry Farm. That would surely
have been a different Mark Twain, a Mark Twain with no Livy, no
Langdons, no perch at the top of East Hill looking out across the
Chemung Valley. How did Quarry Farm matter in sorting the Mark Twain
we've come to know from the many Mark Twains that might have been? And
how, we might ask as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Langdon's
gift of Quarry Farm to the world, via Elmira College, has it mattered to
us?


To listen to the mp3 audio file, please access the following link:

http://www.elmira.edu/academics/distinctive_programs/twain_center/troubl
e_at_eight/recordings