The latest issue of _Pipes and Tobaccos_ magazine (2.3 [Fall 1997])
features the cover story, "Mark Twain: Ultimate Smoker" (pp. 34-41).
The article, by Chuck Stanion <[log in to unmask]>--a member of the
Forum--features several good photos, and the cover has a great sepia
tone photo of Clemens.  From the article:

     Clemens was a man of many vocations: printer, riverboat pilot,
     silver and gold miner, newspaperman, lecturer, world-traveling
     correspondent, humorist, publisher, inventor, speculator, novelist,
     man of letters, American icon--but he had one identity that never
     altered: he was resolutely, inflexibly, unshakably a smoker. (36)

The article is the first of a two-part series.  The editorial in this
issue also contains a plea to save the imperilled Mark Twain Project:

     The Mark Twain Project houses letters, manuscripts, dictations,
     notebooks, photographs, and literary fragments that are essential
     to scholars, and regularly publishes definitive versions of those
     works, as well as previously unpublished pieces.  The tight focus
     of our article--Twain's pipe smoking--would have been impossible
     without the Mark Twain Project's ongoing publication of Twain's
     letters and notebooks. (6)

Photos of some of Clemens' receipts from tobacco and pipe purchases are
reproduced courtesy of MTP (39).

For subscription info about _Pipes and Tobaccos_, send e-mail to
<[log in to unmask]>.

Best regards,
Taylor Roberts