{The following message is posted on behalf of Dr. Lawrence I. Berkove who
made the following announcement at Elmira College during "The State of
Mark Twain Studies" conference on August 14, 1997.--KB}



A MEMORIAL FUND FOR TWAIN SCHOLARS

Fellow Twainians:

All of us have been saddened by the deaths of Twain scholars whose writings
guided and aided us in our own careers. Henry Nash Smith and John Tuckey, for
example, passed away a few years ago; Stanley Brodwin, Jim Wilson, and Pascal
Covici much more recently. While those of us who knew these individuals
personally have attempted in a variety of ways to comfort their families, I
wish to recommend that any and all Twainians who wish to commemorate past and
future demises of Twain scholars, do so by contributing to the life of the
Mark Twain Project.

The Mark Twain Project (MTP), located at the University of
California-Berkeley, is without doubt the major scholarly Twain activity. For
years, it has been annually publishing one or two outstanding editions of
Twain's works: novels, tales, notebooks, and letters. Every single Twainian
has benefited by its productions, models of editorial scholarship. In recent
years, however, it has had to maintain its operations with a reduced staff
and reduced funding, and its editor has had added to his already more than
full-time task the burden of fund-raising. Despite its conscientious
efforts to find donors who are not also sought after by the University of
California fund-raisers, the MTP is chronically underfunded and heavily
dependent upon grants. The Mark Twain Circle, uniquely concerned with the
progress of Twain scholarship, now has an opportunity to memorialize our
departed colleagues by helping the MTP.

As of this date, the Mark Twain Project has established a permanent Memorial
Fund for Twain Scholars. Donations in memory of deceased Twain scholars will
be promptly acknowledged; notification of donations will be sent to a close
survivor; and the names of donors will be published in a separate category of
the acknowledgment section of the next published volume of the MTP. Every
donation will help keep purposefully alive the memory of our cherished
colleagues by giving support to this activity dedicated to preparing
definitive editions of the author to whom they devoted their lives.

Checks may be made out to:

Friends of the Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720

Write "For the Mark Twain Project" on the memo line, and send a covering note
saying "in memory of . . ." and supplying an address to which notification
should be sent. Every dollar donated is presently matched and counts double.
Please be as generous as you can.

Larry Berkove