2023 Fall Trouble Begins Lectures: Gravity – A Conversation

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Please note the the venue has now been changed to the Gibson Theatre.

Join the Center for Mark Twain Studies for Gravity – A Conversation featuring Barbara Snedecor in conversation with Matt Seybold on Thursday, November 30 in the Gibson Theatre, starting at 7:00 p.m.

In a new volume of letters, "Gravity: Selected Letters of Olivia Langdon Clemens," readers are invited to meet Olivia Louise Langdon Clemens on her own terms, in her own voice — as complementary partner to her world-famous spouse, Mark Twain, and as an enduring friend, mother to four children, world traveler, and much more. The frail woman often portrayed by scholars, biographers, and Twain himself is largely absent in these letters. Instead, Olivia (who Twain affectionately referred to as “Gravity” in their early correspondence) emerges as a resilient and energetic nineteenth-century woman, her family’s source and center of stability, and a well of private and public grace in an ever-changing landscape. Mark Twain’s biography recounted in Olivia’s letters offers new insights, and her captivating voice is certain to engage and enlighten readers.

Barbara E. Snedecor served for many years as Director of the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College. In addition to editing the second edition of Mark Twain in Elmira, she has contributed pieces to the Mark Twain Annual and American Literary Realism.

The 2023 Trouble Begins Lecture Series and Park Church Summer Lecture Series are supported by generous support of The Mark Twain Foundation.