Good morning!

Both the Hartford house and the Elmira Center have been lucky enough to hear Miki Pfeffer speak in recent years – Miki also spent writing time at Quarry Farm on being awarded one of Joe Lemak’s wonderful fellowships. As many of you know, she has been working for years on transcribing the letters of Grace King, a marvelous, snarky commentator on things great and small, Mark Twain’s contemporary and friend, and a colorful and under-regarded author of dramatic tales of New Orleans and its denizens.

King was friends with the whole Clemens family, meeting (and dining with) them while in Hartford to see her literary mentor, Charles Dudley Warner, in 1887; and becoming ultimately close to all -- particularly to Livy. The exchange of letters between the two women on the question of whether the family should return to live in Hartford after Susy’s death is particularly moving, Livy writing of “the heartbreaking associations there and all the changes.”

This exchange, which Miki brought to light, and dozens of other moving, compelling, hilarious and eloquent missives have been brought out in Miki’s recent book, A New Orleans Author in Mark Twain’s Court: Grace King’s New England Sojourns (LSU Press).  This Thursday, July 23, at 5:30 p.m. EDT, I’ll be talking to Miki in the next of the Mark Twain House & Museum’s “Trouble at Home” series. Like everything these days, this is a virtual event. It lasts about 40-50 minutes, provides an opportunity for questions, and has generated a large following.

Miki is a treat, and her many years of persistence, combined with her own prodigious literary grace and skill, bear out Kevin Mac Donnell’s comments in his review on this Forum: “Few readers expect a page-turner when they open a volume of collected letters…But thanks to the able editing of Miki Pfeffer, Grace King's correspondence with various members of the Clemens family does indeed have the feel of an epistolary novel.”


It’s free, and I hope you’ll tune in Thursday! To register, go here:  https://marktwainhouse.org/event/trouble-at-home-a-new-orleans-author-in-mark-twains-court/ (International Forum members: When prompted for a U.S. Zip code, just write “12345.”)

Best,

Steve

P.S. Past sessions of “Trouble at Home” are available here:

https://marktwainhouse.org/recordedvirtualevents

Steve Courtney, Curatorial Volunteer
The Mark Twain House & Museum
351 Farmington Avenue
Hartford, Connecticut 06105
860-302-8969