Mark Twain – SHSMO Historic Missourians

Mahan Memorial Mark Twain Collection

The original Mark Twain Collection of The State Historical Society of Missouri began in 1901 with the acquisition of historical Missouri materials in the private collection of Francis Asbury Sampson of Sedalia. Within the Sampson Collection were a number of rare editions and foreign translations of Mark Twain novels.

In 1902, Clemens visited the University of Missouri, Columbia, and donated a twenty-two-volume edition of his collected works to the Society.

During the next two decades, the collection continued to grow slowly through purchases and gifts. Then, in 1923, the Society purchased the fine Mark Twain library of 135 books, over 1,153 cartoons, and 122 clippings collected by Purd B. Wright of Kansas City. In 1936, after the death of George A. Mahan, The State Historical Society of Missouri’s president for eleven years, the Mark Twain Collection was officially named the “Mahan Memorial Mark Twain Collection” in commemoration of Mahan and his work in memorializing Mark Twain. Among Mahan’s philanthropic activities was his and his family’s gift of the Mark Twain boyhood home to the city of Hannibal.

The Society continued to add to the collection through gifts and purchases, and by 1948 the collection had grown to 480 volumes and also contained scrapbooks and additional cartoons. New items are still added to the collection, and by 2006 it had grown to over 1,120 volumes. The books cover a wide variety of topics: first editions and reprints of Twain novels, analytic views of his writings by others, bibliographies, photographic essays, biographies of Twain and his family, autobiographical writings, and descriptions of Twain’s world, homes, and travels.