Research help
Resources
Our resources for research include both physical and virtual materials. The physical archive includes Clemens’s papers and correspondence; first editions of Mark Twain’s publications and selected reprints; Twain's personal library; photographs and other images.
Virtual resources may be found at Mark Twain Project Online, where their scope is described. Our Publications page lists texts edited from the Papers and other repositories’ holdings, as well as microfilm of our manuscripts.
The MTP does not have a reference librarian who can assist with school projects or general questions.
Primary sources
Primary materials range widely:
- A collection of holograph letters written by Clemens and his family members.
- A chronological file of facsimiles or transcriptions of all known letters by Clemens or his immediate family, and all known letters to or about Clemens and his immediate family.
- Forty-six notebooks kept by Clemens between 1855 and 1910, and typescripts prepared by Project staff. (One additional notebook is part of Manuscript Collection MS-0809, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin; another is in Samuel L. Clemens Papers at Vassar College; and two are part of YCAL MSS 852 in Yale University’s Beinecke Library. Transcriptions of these are in the Papers.)
- Both published and unpublished literary manuscripts, together with related drafts, typescripts, or proofs, as well as the published and unpublished portions of Clemens’s autobiography.
- Contemporary documents that belonged to Clemens himself, including mining deeds, book contracts, and financial records, as well as photocopies of contemporary newspaper reporting on Clemens and his associates.
- More than three dozen scrapbooks, some of which are Clemens's own patented design, containing miscellaneous clippings and documents saved by Clemens or his family.
Library holdings
The Project maintains an extensive working library of Twain's books in various editions, contemporary and foreign language reprints, and related monographs. These books are cataloged on UC Library Search. Choose “Mark Twain Papers” as the search location.
About 150 books from Mark Twain's home library are also cataloged on UC Library Search. A printed inventory of the titles is available. In addition, photocopies of marginalia from books owned by other institutions and private collectors are filed in the Papers; as time permits, these are cataloged on LibraryThing.
Photographs
The Project's pictorial collection contains over 2,000 items. Visitors to the archive may research this collection (mainly photographs, but also including cased miniatures, drawings, caricatures, and engravings) through several albums of viewing prints, arranged chronologically and organized by subject: (1) Clemens; (2) the Clemens family; (3) photographs taken by Clemens's youngest daughter, Jean, between 1900 and 1905; (4) photographs taken by Clemens's secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, between 1904 and 1908; and (5) photographs of people and places associated with Clemens, arranged alphabetically.
Our collection of cased photographs and miniatures may be viewed at Online Archive of California, along with full descriptive notes.
Image: Mark Twain and Helen Keller. Photographer: Isabel V. Lyon. Date: 8 January 1909. [Mark Twain Papers, PH02066]
Reproductions and permissions
Information about how to request duplication of material held by the Mark Twain Papers can be found on The Bancroft Library’s online guide.
Permission to use material found in the collection of the Mark Twain Papers cannot be granted by the Library. Full information on how to determine whether a work is in the public domain, how to make a fair use determination for protected works, and who to contact for a use license can be found on The Bancroft Library’s online guide.
Access
The Mark Twain Papers offers several kinds of access to signature non-circulating materials.
If you have research questions about items in our physical collection, please consider visiting our reading room, upstairs from The Bancroft Library’s reading room.
The catalog of all letters known to us which have been sent from or to Samuel Clemens’s household — regardless of their current owner — is part of marktwainproject.org. MTPO also includes a growing selection of our edited volumes of Clemens’s letters and writings, images from our collection, and research resources. The site is produced by Project staff and the staff of UC Berkeley’s Library IT Office.
Subject to curatorial review and intellectual property issues, we may provide digital images of items in our collection for research use or for publication.
The Mark Twain Papers & Project offices are not open to the public for tours. Several exhibitions curated by the editors have been converted for web view.
Image: Mark Twain's signature
Helpful websites
Most general questions about Mark Twain, his writings, the source or authenticity of quotations, etc., can be answered by consulting Mark Twain Project publications or standard reference books at a local library. MTP staff also recommend the following sites:
Mark Twain Forum — a moderated internet discussion group for those with an interest in the life and works of Mark Twain. The forum site includes subscription information and links to book reviews.
Mark Twain in His Times — edited by Stephen Railton, University of Virginia.
Mark Twain quotations, newspaper collections, and web resources — a highly reliable and comprehensive source of quotations and texts built by Barbara Schmidt.