Volumes have been written about the quintessentially American author who chose an experience as a Mississippi riverboat pilot as the name by which he would pen his works. The term “mark twain,” a steamboat depth measurement, became Samuel Langhorne Clemens’s pseudonym by which classic literary works such as “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Prince and the Pauper” were associated.
Although born in Florida, Missouri, Clemens moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1871, after his career as an author took off, because he expressed his fondness for the area. After renting a home for a time, Clemens and his wife, Olivia (Liv) enlisted well-known New York architect Edward Tuckerman Potter to design in 1873 their 11,500-square-foot, 25-room dream home, where, not surprisingly, the library is central. It is here, with his wife and three children, that Mark Twain was most prolific….