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.