Samuel Clemens ("Mark Twain," 1835-1910), the famous American author from Hannibal, Missouri settled in Hartford, Connecticut in the early 1870s.

Nook Farm

His grand house at Nook Farm, 351 Farmington Avenue (map), was finished in 1874 at a cost of $131,000, and is extremely rich in the sort of detail that makes Victorian architecture so much fun to inspect.

Twain moved out of the house only after bad investments forced him to take a lecture tour of Europe for some quick money.

Twain's Best-sellers

He loved this place for the best years of his life, and wrote Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court while he lived here.

To see the Mark Twain House you must take the tour, which is just as well, for the guides have an encyclopedic knowledge of the house and its occupants.

Right next door, also at Nook Farm, is the Harriet Beecher Stowe House.

Mark Twain House & Museum
351 Farmington Avenue (map)
Hartford, CT 06105
Tel 860-247-0998

—Tom Brosnahan

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