BOOKPATHS

Hannibal, Missouri, U.S.

Christopher Reynolds visits “Mark Twain’s Hannibal, Mo.”

While I scanned the scene for signs of Muff Potter, Sweets, curator of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, quoted 'Tom Sawyer' from memory and told of the many 'Twainiacs' he's welcomed from Australia, England, Germany and Japan; the ones who wept; and the one who solemnly dipped a finger into the Mississippi, like a supplicant at a holy water font. As Sweets spoke, the wind rustled the sycamores and a train wailed in the distance. – from “A Visit to Mark Twain’s Hannibal, Mo.,” by Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

Bookpath: Hannibal, Missouri, USA

Following in Mark Twain’s Footsteps

Mark Twain’s Hannibal, fictionalized as St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is located along the Mississippi River in Northeastern Missouri at the Illinois border. A bit touristy, it’s true, Hannibal can still offer a satisfying journey into the real and fictional worlds of Mark Twain.

Begin at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum at 3rd and Hill Streets. Here you’ll tour the home where Mark Twain lived from ages 4 to 18. The museum annex includes Twain memorabilia and first editions of his works. Nearby you’ll find “Becky Thatcher’s House,” a statue of Tom and Huck, and the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse. One mile south of Hannibal is The Mark Twain Cave, once explored by Twain himself and later by his characters – Tom, Becky, and Huck. And, then, there’s Hannibal itself. Walking it’s streets and waterfront, it’s easy to imagine the days, beginning in 1839, when Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens, called it home.

“Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.” – from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain

Related Websites

The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum

Mark Twain Cave

Hannibal Convention and Visitors Bureau

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Online Edition

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Online Edition

Mansfield, Missouri

The “little house” where Laura Ingalls Wilder spent her childhood “has been known to move visitors to tears.”

“The 40-acre farm the Wilders bought in 1894 for $400 now includes a museum with artifacts from Laura's collection, including a fiddle her father played in Laura's stories, a quilt made by her sister Mary and handwritten manuscripts of the books.” – "75 Years Later, There’s Still Devotion to Little House,” from The Associated Press

Bookpath: Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site, Florida, Missouri

Samuel Clemens, later known as Mark Twain, was born in a cabin in the tiny village of Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, the third of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens’ four children who survived into adulthood. The family lived in Florida until 1939 when they moved thirty miles east to Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Twain is remembered in Florida at the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site. A red granite monument marks the cabin’s original location. Visitors can see the preserved two-room cabin in the historic site’s museum, along with exhibits and audio-visual programs interpreting Twain’s extraordinary life. On view are first editions of Twain’s work; a handwritten copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; furnishings from his Hartford, Connecticut home; and a public reading room. The 2,775-acre Mark Twain State Park surrounds the historic site inviting access to oak, hickory and maple woodlands and Mark Twain Lake.

The Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. November through March and from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily April through October. It’s closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s days. For additional information, visit the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site website.

My parents removed to Missouri in the early 'thirties; I do not remember just when, for I was not born then and cared nothing for such things. It was a long journey in those days, and must have been a rough and tiresome one. The home was made in the wee village of Florida, in Monroe County, and I was born there in 1835. The village contained a hundred people and I increased the population by 1 per cent. It is more than many of the best men in history could have done for a town. It may not be modest in me to refer to this, but it is true. There is no record of a person doing as much--not even Shakespeare. But I did it for Florida, and it shows that I could have done it for any place--even London, I suppose. – from Mark Twain’s Autobiography

The photograph is from the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site website.

Missouri, The Ozarks

Daniel Woodrell, “one of the best-kept secrets in American literature,” gives John Williams “a tour of his hard-boiled world.”

“Woodrell lives and works in the Ozarks and avoids the publicity circuit. To interview him, I had to fly to St Louis and drive for four or five hours into the middle of nowhere. The Ozark region is, for the most part, surprisingly un-mountainous. I pass small towns whose every store seems to sell agricultural hardware, and finally land up in West Plains, where the family has lived for generations.” – “Daniel Woodrell : the Ozark Daredevil,” by John Williams, The Independent