Hello, fellow Twain lover --

We have a couple of items that may interest you:
(1) the 1999 "Mark Twain's New York" birthday
walking tour (see below) and (2) the latest on
the (hopefully) nascent Mark Twain Circle/Mark
Twain Association of New York.

Following our very successful launch-lunch at
Pete's Tavern in the summer of 1998 I had hoped
to follow up with an ongoing program of meetings
and events.  Alas, 1999 has turned out to be a
year of fairly intensive family and business
obligations, and I've had to keep putting off
action on my Twainish plans.

Things are looking up, however -- and indeed, we
may see our way clear to restoring the legal
status of the late lamented Mark Twain
Association of New York as a tax-exempt,
not-for-profit corporation, which will in turn
open the way to a richer menu of activities.  We
hope to be in touch about that shortly.

Meanwhile, you may be interested in "Mark
Twain's New York," the annual visit to
Twain-related landmarks in lower Manhattan and
Greenwich Village.  The following is the text of
our recent press release on the subject:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

News from The Mark Twain Circle of New York

For immediate release
Contact: Serena Siegfried, 212-242-5546;
[log in to unmask]

CELEBRATING AN UNEXPECTED NEW YORKER: MARK TWAIN

Annual “Birthday Tour” Offers a Stroll through
the Humorist’s New York Haunts

NEW YORK, October 29, 1999 – “October,” said
Mark Twain, “is one of the peculiarly dangerous
months to speculate in stocks in.  The others
are July, January, September, April, November,
May, March, June, December, August, and
February.”

It was through such pithy observations that
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, writing as Mark Twain,
made himself the best-known figure in American
literature. But few New Yorkers know that he
also had a very special and enduring
relationship with their city.  The oldest
surviving scrap of writing from Clemens’ hand,
for instance, is a letter home from Manhattan.
(“I have taken a liking to the abominable
 place,” he confessed).  In the decades that
followed, Twain’s New York connections helped
raise him to national fame, while he himself
became one of our town’s most acclaimed and
beloved citizens, whose wit and wisdom was
constantly quoted in the press on every public
issue.

To renew the friendship and honor the humorist’s
164th birthday next month, Peter Salwen, a New
York author and Twain expert, will lead a
two-hour walking tour of Mark Twain landmarks in
SoHo and Greenwich Village on Saturday, November
20.  The tour, liberally sprinkled with Twainian
anecdotes and epigrams, starts from Broadway and
Spring Street at 1:00 PM, and ends with a
birthday toast at Twain’s turn-of-the-century
home on West Tenth Street.  Fifteen dollars.
Rain date Sunday, November 21, same time and
place.