BNL Insider November 2015

BNL INSIDER

vol 2, issue 7

November 2015

A

Celebration Of Mark Twain

HEAD’S UP

“Listen to

SUPPORTING

BERMUDA’S

LITERARY COMMUNITY

By Joanne Brangman

your life. All moments are key moments.” ― Frederick Buechner,

Director, Bermuda National Library

Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation

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nce again I need to thank the Buechner Society of Bermuda and the Read●Write Bermuda Initiative for sponsoring this month of activities highlighting Mark Twain. In addition to providing the financial support to host the lecture

by Dr. Cindy Lovell and the performance

by Gavin Wilson; the Buechner Society also provided funds to purchase additional copies of Mark Twain books to add to the Library’s collection.

Rev. Frederick Buechner is well known as the author of over 30 internationally published books. Less well known is that he is someone who grew up in Paget, attending Warwick Academy following the Newsletter Committee

The BNL: Insider V o l 2,

issue

7

NOVEMBER 2015

A publication of the Bermuda National Library

Par-La-Ville • #13 Queen Street • Hamilton HM 11

2

NOVEMBER 2015

Nikki Bowers Keith Caesar Contributors Fredrina James Ashley Stone Randy York

tragic death of his father, when Reverend Buechner, was only 10.

Frederick Buechner, through his Buechner Society of Bermuda, has made major and sustained contributions to child and family literacy.On a long-term basis, his convening and support of literacy has led to the creation of ‘Read•Write•Bermuda’, a campaign to promote reading and writing and to celebrate and support Bermuda’s literary community.

The Read•Write•Bermuda Campaign created with the central support of Reverend Buechner will have long-term impact in three major areas of focus: Building Readers, Supporting Writers, and Expanding Libraries.

299-0030 ● www.bnl.bm ● libraryinfo@gov.bm

CONTENTS HEAD’S UP 2 CELEBRATION OF MARK TWAIN

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MARK TWAIN THE BERMUDA VISITS

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HOT PICKS FALL READS 7 GETTING THE RIGHT SHOT

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IT HAPPENED HERE 13 DID YOU KNOW 16

HOURS OF OPERATION MONDAY 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

THURSDAY FRIDAY 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

SATURDAY 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Photos courtesy of the Allen Collection and the Bermuda National Trust

Photo courtesy of the Allen Collection / Bermuda National Trust

A Celebration of Mark Twain

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e may not always know it, but in the early days Bermuda was a hub for many travelers.

Bermuda was a popular vacation spot for the rich and famous. It was also the playground for some of the worlds top literary royalty.

This month The Bermuda National library in conjunction with the Bermuda Archives, the Bermuda Historical Society, the Bermuda National Trust, and the Buechner Society of Bermuda, will host a series of talks and lectures entitled “a celebration of Mark Twain”.

You should have heard of Twain, as he is the author behind, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” “The Innocents Abroad,” “The Prince and the Pauper,” “Life on the Mississippi” and “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson”.

Twain visited the island on several occasions in the early part of the last century. One of his most famous quotes celebrating the Island was, “You go to heaven if you want to — I’d rather stay right here in Bermuda.”

We talked with Ellen Jane Hollis about the event, how it came about and what people should look forward to.

Why do you think Mark Twain was so enchanted by Bermuda?

EH: Bermuda was different from what he saw at home, and definitely differed from what he saw in the Mediterranean in 1867. Bermuda became a quiet refuge for a man whose fame probably became overwhelming at times, as well as a place of healing after his personal losses and ailing health.

How did this event come about?

EH: Following the success of last year’s celebration of Mark Twain by the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, it was determined that the Bermuda National Library could continue the celebration of Twain’s visits to Bermuda through the support and encouragement of the Buechner Society of Bermuda. By offering different activities, the Bermuda National Library hopes to encourage the public to learn more about this prolific writer.

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Photo courtesy of the Allen Collection / Bermuda National Trust

MARK TWAIN:

THE BERMUDA VISITS Special to the Insider

By Tim Hodgson

M

ark Twain first set eyes on the island he was to later say provided him with a foreglimpse of heaven in November, 1867.

Bermuda was the last port of call on the odyssey of the Quaker City, arguably the world’s first extended pleasure cruise. At that time Twain was establishing a reputation for himself as a newspaper columnist in California. He had already been, among other things, a printer’s apprentice, a Mississippi riverboat pilot, a civil servant and a gold and silver prospector in his time. Now his writing was taking wing and his commentaries were already coloured by the sharp wit – and even sharper eye for the truth – which came to characterise the classic books his enduring status as a humourist, social critic and literary genius rests upon.

Mark Twain had persuaded a California newspaper to send him on the transatlantic voyage aboard the charter vessel Quaker City. The retired US Civil War vessel’s “Great Pleasure Excursion”, as Twain called the trip, included stops in Europe and the Holy Land to see the great sights and historic places of interest. As one academic said, the journey provided him with ample opportunity to “lampoon the naïveté of his fellow Americans (‘‘The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad’) and the modest indignities they experienced exploring the sophisticated Old World (‘In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.’) …”.

The reports he filed on the five-month “New Pilgrims Progress”

won him a wide and enthusiastic readership and, following some revisions, were later published as “The Innocents Abroad” in 1869. This was to be Mark Twain’s biggest selling book during his lifetime, one which is still widely regarded as both the cornerstone and the capstone of modern travel writing.

The Quaker City arrived in Bermuda on November 11, 1867 and Mark Twain and his 73 fellow passengers spent four blissful days exploring the island. Bermuda proved a marked contrast to the poverty and disease the travellers had encountered before leaving the Mediterranean and embarking on their homeward journey. “Days passed — and nights; and then the beautiful Bermudas rose out of the sea, we entered the tortuous channel, steamed hither and thither among the bright summer islands, and rested at last under the flag of England and were welcomed,” he said of the island in Innocents Abroad. “We were not a nightmare here, where were civilization and intelligence in place of Spanish and Italian superstition, dirt and dread of cholera.

“A few days among the breezy groves, the flower gardens, the coral caves, and the lovely vistas of blue water that went curving in and out, disappearing and anon again appearing through jungle walls of brilliant foliage, restored the energies dulled by long drowsing on the ocean, and fitted us for our final cruise— our little run of a thousand miles to New York — America — HOME.” Between that first visit and his death in 1910, Twain returned to Bermuda numerous times, enchanted by the

See BERMUDA VISITS, Page 6 NOVEMBER 2015

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BERMUDA VISITS, from page 11

inhabitants of “that happy little paradise”. He once jokingly observed of the Bermudian character: “The spectacle of an entire nation grovelling in contentment is an infuriating thing”. In both his published and private writings the author also frequently extolled the island’s “peaceful serenities”, contrasting them approvingly with the breakneck pace, overcrowding and social ills found in the increasingly industrialised and urbanised America which had emerged in the post-Civil War period.

“The early twilight of a Sunday evening in . . . Bermuda, is an alluring time,” he said. “There is just enough of whispering breeze, fragrance of flowers, and sense of repose to raise one’s thoughts heavenward; and just enough amateur piano music to keep him reminded of the other place”.

In Bermuda he found “no rush, no hurry, no moneygetting frenzy, no fretting, no complaining, no fussing and quarreling; no telegrams, no daily newspapers, no railroads, no tramways, no subways, no trolleys, no Ls, no Tammany, no Republican party, no Democratic party, no graft, no officeseeking, no elections, no legislatures for sale; hardly a dog, seldom a cat, only one steam-whistle; not a saloon, nobody drunk; no (Women’s Christian Temperance Union); and there is a church and a school on every corner. The spirit of the place is serenity, repose, contentment, tranquility.”

So taken was he by Bermuda, following an 1877 trip he produced an exquisitely detailed 15,000-word pen portrait of the island, Some Rambling Notes On An Idle Excursion. By this time Mark Twain was a household name both in America and, increasingly, throughout the world. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, his children’s classic, had appeared in 1876 and become an immediate popular and critical sensation. Every new book, story or article bearing his name was eagerly devoured by a vast readership and the Bermuda piece was no exception. Published over four issues of The Atlantic magazine in 1877, Some Rambling … remains a minor classic in the overstuffed archives of travel literature.

The essay helped to shape the outside world’s view of Bermuda as equal parts mid-Atlantic Eden and good-hearted pocket nation of professional eccentrics and played a major part in establishing the island as a popular holiday destination for North Americans. Describing his visit to the island that year as “much the joyousest trip I ever had”, tourism historian Duncan McDowell has said as a result of the Atlantic series “Mark Twain almost single-handedly became the most effective transmitter of Bermuda and its charms into America.

“He not only heightened its profile he also gave it legitimacy in the eyes of those urbanised, harried Americans who now had the money, the time and the need to seek escape from the pressures of modern American life.”

Some Rambling Notes …, later reprinted in European magazines and included in a popular book collecting Twain’s

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magazine articles, provided readers with a remarkably full account of Bermuda’s geography, flora, fauna, industry, culture and idiosyncracies. Before he had even set foot on the Island on that 1877 visit, for instance, Twain learned of Bermuda’s preoccupation with its namesake onion, then its chief export and the unlikely centerpiece of its commercial, cultural and social life.

“Many citizens came on board (as his ship berthed in Hamilton) and spoke eagerly to the officers – enquiring about Turco-Russian war news, I supposed. I found out this was not so. They said: ‘What is the price of onions?’ or ‘How’s the onions?’ Naturally this was their first interest: but they dropped into the war the moment it was satisfied.”

Twain was immediately amused and fascinated by the central role the island’s namesake onion had assumed in local life.

“The onion is the pride and joy of Bermuda,” he recounted in Some Rambling Notes. “In her conversation, her pulpit, her literature, it is her most frequent and eloquent figure.

In Bermuda metaphor it stands for perfection – perfection absolute.

“The Bermudian weeping for the departed exhausts praise when he says, ‘He was an onion!’ The Bermudian extolling the living hero bankrupts applause when he says, ‘He is an onion!’ The Bermudian setting his son upon the stage of life to dare and do for himself climaxes all counsel, supplication, admonition, comprehends all ambition, when he says, ‘Be an onion!’ …”

He also commented on the dress, demeanor and general bearing of the crowd which greeted the SS Bermuda as it docked, as elegant and genteel assembly as he had ever seen gathered on a waterfront.

“It was a Sunday afternoon and on the pier were gathered one or two hundred Bermudians, half of them black, half of them white, and all of them nobbily dressed, as the poet says,” he said. “… One would have to travel far before he would find another town of 12,000 inhabitants that could represent itself so respectably in the matter of clothes, on a freight pier, without premeditation of effort.

“The women and young girls, black and white, who occasionally passed by were nicely clad, and many were elegantly and fashionably so. The men did not affect summer clothing much, but the girls and women did, and their white clothes were good to look at …”

He was so impressed by the methods Bermudians used to construct buildings, starting with the fact the raw material was sawn out of the very land they stood on, he devoted several pages to the subject in Some Rambling Notes ... “(After the house is complete and) cased in its hard scale of white wash, not a crack, or sign of a seam, or joining of the blocks is detectable, from base-stone to chimney-top; the building looks as if it had been carved from a single block of stone, and the doors and windows sawed out afterwards.”

See BERMUDA VISITS, Page 15

Fall Reads M PAT Truth or Die

By James Patterson

W

hen his journalist girlfriend’s latest scoop leads to a violent confrontation, attorney Trevor Mann discovers a shocking secret that governments and terrorist organizations would do anything to possess.

F STE Country

By Danielle Steel

S

truggling to achieve an independent life when her stale marriage abruptly ends, Stephanie Adams

embarks on an impulsive road trip and discovers herself in the course of a whirlwind relationship with a famous country music star.

F SIL

The English Spy

By Daniel Silva

G

abriel Allon investigates the murder of the former princess of England and enlists the help

of Christopher Keller, a British commando turned professional assassin, to track down master bomb maker Eamon Quinn.

F GEO

The Little Paris Bookshop

Q

By Nina George

uirky and delightful, Nina George’s book focuses on Jean Perdu, owner of the Literary Apothecary, a floating bookshop. When a new tenant in his apartment building sets in motion events that force Jean to re-evaluate his past, he finds himself floating off down the rivers of France in search of lost love, new love, and friends he didn’t know he needed.

NOVEMBER 2015

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F LEE

M THO

By Harper Lee

By Brad Thor

Go Set a Watchman

T

wenty years after the trial of Tom Robinson, Scout returns home to Maycomb to visit her father and struggles with personal and political issues as her small Alabama town adjusts to the turbulent events beginning to transform the United States in the mid-1950s.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor”--.

F GRO

By Tracie Loveless-Hill

By Lauren Groff

truggling couple Michael and Lorece have a kind bishop volunteer to care for their children until they can get back on their feet, but when they come to reclaim their offspring, they find themselves in the fight of their lives.

ates and Furies is a modern portrait of marriage. Lotto Satterwhite is the center, the hub around which all the characters revolve in the first half of the book. In the second half of the book, the lens turns to Lotto’s wife Mathilde, and her side of the lopsided partnership gives us a totally different view. Groff is a master of language. It’s not a gentle read. But

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Fates and Furies

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F BLA

F KER

By Grant Blackwood

By Beth Kery

Tom Clancy’s Under Fire

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The Affair

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n a routine intelligence gathering mission in Tehran, Jack Ryan, Jr., has lunch with his oldest friend, Seth Gregory, an engineer overseeing a transcontinental railway project. As they part, Seth slips Jack a key, along with a perplexing message…

ospice nurse Emma Shore seeks to protect her heart after being repeatedly seduced by her racecar billionaire employer, Michael Montand.

M PAT

F GRE

By James Patterson

By Jane Green

Gone

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etective Bennett comes out of the Witness Protection Program in an effort to stop the ruthless and charismatic killer, Manuel Perrine, who has sworn revenge.

NOVEMBER 2015

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he next Scot Harvath thriller from

F LOV

Acts of Betrayal

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Code of Conduct

Summer secrets

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ears after hard partying and the discovery of the father she never knew ends her only friendships, Cat Coombs achieves sobriety and resolves to make amends to those she has hurt during a revelatory Nantucket summer. By the New York Times best-selling author of Saving Grace.

F PER

F COA

By Dolen Perkins-Valdez

By Ta-Nehisi Coates mericans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son.

Balm

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et during the Civil War era and exploring the next chapter of history-the end of slavery-this powerful story of love and healing is about three people who struggle to overcome the pain of the past and define their own future”--.

F WAL Dietland

By Sarai Walker

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fresh and provocative debut novel about a reclusive young woman saving up for weight loss surgery when she gets drawn into a shadowy feminist guerilla group called “Jennifer”--equal parts Bridget Jones’s Diary and Fight Club”--.

Between the World and Me

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F WEB

Grand Opening

By Carl Weber

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prequel to the “Family Business” saga follows the early years of the Duncan brothers to reveal their ambitions and the role of a mysterious but determined woman in shaping their destinies.

SF CLI

F WAR

By Ernest Cline

By Ruth Ware

Armada

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truggling to complete his final month of high school only to glimpse a UFO that exactly resembles an enemy ship from his favorite video game, Zack questions his sanity before becoming one of millions of gamers tasked with protecting the Earth during an alien invasion.

F OKP

Under the Udala Trees

By Chinelo Okparanta

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young Nigerian girl, displaced during their civil war, begins a powerful love affair with another refugee girl from a different ethnic community until the pair are discovered and must learn the cost of living a lie amidst taboos and prejudices.

In a Dark, Dark Wood

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eonora Shaw is a crime writer who lives a solitary life in London until she receives an invitation to a hen party for a friend she hasn’t seen in nearly ten years. The party takes place in a remote location with spotty phone service. Are you nervous yet? We know from the opening pages that something horrible happens, but just what, and to whom, how, and why will keep readers guessing — and flipping the pages.

M BEA

Dishing the Dirt

By M.C. Beaton

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hen therapist Jill Davent moved to the village of Carsely, Agatha Raisin was not a fan. Not only was this therapist romancing Agatha’s ex-husband but she dug up details of Agatha’s not-too-glamorous origins. When Agatha learns that Jill had hired a private detective to investigate her background, she barges into Jill’s office and gives her a piece of her mind, yelling “I could kill you!”

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SPOTLIGHT: MARK TWAIN B TWA

Autobiography of Mark Twain.

Volume 3

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concluding volume of the literary master’s uncensored collection of writings on his inner and outer life features his daily dictations from March 1907 to December 1909 and cover his honorary degrees from Oxford, critical assessments of Theodore Roosevelt and controversial “AshcroftLyon Manuscript.”

F TWA

The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories

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By Mark Twain

representation of the American humorist’s works features an eclectic mix of writings,

including “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” “The Stolen White Elephant,” and the novella The Mysterious Stranger.

F TWA

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

By Mark Twain

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his satirical novel tells the story of Hank Morgan, the quintessential self-reliant New Englander, who brings to King Arthur’s Age of Chivalry the “great and beneficent” miracles of nineteenth-century engineering and Yankee ingenuity.

F TWA

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

By Mark Twain

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he adventures and pranks of a mischievous boy growing up in a 19th-century Mississippi River

town as he plays hooky on an island, witnesses a crime, hunts for pirate’s treasure, and becomes lost in a cave.

R BDA B TWA

Mark Twain in paradise : his voyages to Bermuda

By Donald Hoffmann

S

amuel Clemens first encountered the Bermuda Islands in 1867 and retreated there many more times for its beauty, pace, weather and company, both local and elite. Hoffmann gathers and examines passages from travel pieces, letters, and unpublished autobiographical dictation to illuminate the writer’s love for Bermuda and its seafaring culture”

F COM

The complete humorous sketches and tales of Mark Twain edited and with an introduction by

Charles Neider

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his is the first and most complete collection of all 136 humorous sketches and tales that Mark Twain, started writing as a young reporter for various newspapers and magazines and later saw fit to issue in book form. Many pieces appeared in rare, first printings, only to be dropped in subsequent editions; for this reason, readers will encounter a number of yarns and tall tales unavailable elsewhere, even in the collected works.

F TWA

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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By Mark Twain

he classic boyhood adventure tale, updated with a new introduction by noted Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen and a foreword by Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Republic of Imagination.

F TWA

A Double Barrelled Detective Story

By Mark Twain

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eatures Sherlock Holmes in the American West. Twain uses Sherlock Holmes to brilliantly parody the entire mystery genre.

Holmes slavishly employs the scientific method to a ridiculous degree and to a widely incorrect conclusion while attempting to solve a crime.

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getting the right shot

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ne of the most fun loving hobbies for many, that is accessible to everyone is Photography.

What used to be an expensive, time consuming, artistic expression of art has pretty much evolved into the same thing, only now we have digital.

Today you literally carry a small studio in your pocket. All you need to do is trust your eye and shoot away.

With the rise of the internet you can share your work with friends, family, and say a thousand of your closest strangers while opening new avenues for your work to be seen.

Even more amazing, an amateur can become a pro in a matter months depending on your learning curve.

We live in a world where the term Selfie has been ingrained into our vernacular. But there is still one truth that remains. There has to be some form of technical skill that goes along with the artistic eye.

We have a number of books related to photography that could help you get the right shot.

Being a fan of the craft, Bermuda has had several photographers who have performed on the international stage.

by Keith Caesar

Photographers like J.A. Frith, Richard Saunders, Scott Stallard, and Ian MacDonald Smith to name a few.

Frith, who was born a slave, held a business in the 1890’s. Richard Saunders was a local photographer who worked with Life magazine and a host of magazines from the 1960’s onward.

Whatever gets you going, whether landscapes, macrophotography, event photography, photojournalism, we’ve got books at the Bermuda National Library that can get you on the road to building your photographic dreams.

Photography is art. Something that requires that you take the time to learn the craft behind it - anyone can make a good image, but those who work hard at it can make great photographs.

We’ve listed some of our collection one the corresponding page - you might find something worth looking at.

So if this is a subject that interests you stop by and have a look at our collection. If you any suggestions for books we may have missed, let us know. You can reach us at 299-0030 or e-mail us at Library@gov.bm

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RIGHT SHOT, from page 11

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nterested in the craft of photography? We’ve got dozens of books specifically dedicated to the art.

Here’s a sample to help you get started.

Ang, Tom. Digital Photography master class. 775 A White, Laura. Photography Business Secrets: the savvy photographers guide to sales, marketing, and more. 770.68 W Pasi, Alessandro. Leica Witness to a century 771.31 P Elizabeth, Messina. The luminous Portrait. 778.92 M Shabazz, Jamel. Seconds of my Life. 9.2092 S Stillman, Andrea. Ansel Adams 400 photographs. 779.092 A Doisneau, Robert. Paris. 779.994436 D Wildlife Photographer of the year Portfolio 22. 779.32 W Taliferro, Jerry Women of a New Tribe. A photographic Celebration of the Black Woman. 779.24 T Willis, Deborah. Posing beauty : African American images, from the 1890s to the present. 779.08996073 W Benson, Matthew. The photographic garden : mastering the art of digital garden photography. 8.934 B Baetens, Pascal. Nude Photography the art and the craft. 778.921 B Newman, Cathy. Women photographers. 770.922 N

Bermudian Photography Sometimes all you need is to look in your own back yard for great inspiration. Here’s a small glimpse of what we have in our collection.

Spurling, Ann. Bermuda Nine Parishes. R BDA 917.299 S Stallard, Scott. Bermuda from above. R BDA 917.299 S Weatherhill, John. The faces of Bermuda. R BDA 920 W Weatherhill, John. The faces of Bermuda: Volume 2. R BDA 920 W Simons, Tamell. Date with Destiny: A photographic history. R BDA 324.97299 S Macdonald-Smith, Ian. Bermudian ruins . R

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B917.299 M NOVEMBER 2015

IT HAPPENED HERE !

Here’s a quick run down of some of the events that happened at the Library.

Author of the new book, The defining story of Bermuda’s great gunpowder plot 1775 : the American connection & other selected highlights, including the Attack on Washington (1814), Michael Marsh stopped by for a book discussion and signing.

We had an awesome time at our first quiz night. It was an intense contest, but overall a good time!

September was Library card sign up month. Members came in a renewed their library membership for another year.

Our Big Book Sale was a smashing success! The price was right. At 25 cents a book, people flocked to our sale, enjoyed and left with a heavy load of books.

We had an exciting time, and both saw and met a lot of great people and who stopped in and purchased some books. Keep your eyes out for out next Big Book Sale.

See HAPPENED, Page 14

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A LIBRARIAN? The questions were intense but we made it through with our first quiz night. Hats off to the participants and the wining teams.

We look forward to seeing you next time.

NOVEMBER 2015

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HAPPENED, from page 13

Photos by Kenisha Shakir

The Big Break: We had an awesome time as many of our books made a break for it, no doubt they’ve found great new homes!

Photo courtesy of the Allen Collection / Bermuda National Trust

Mark Twain in Pictures: a selection of pics courtesy of the Allen Collection and the Bermuda National Trust

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NOVEMBER 2015

companionship in gentle excursions, along peaceful, shady roads, was … delectable,” said the guardian of one Describing the white-washed look of Bermuda buildings of his young Bermuda companions. “In the delight of as “exactly the white of the icing of a cake (with) the same knowing Mr. Clemens we almost forgot Mark Twain. unemphasised and scarcely perceptible polish”, he added as “This charming, courteous gentleman, with the crown an afterthought: “The white of marble is modest and retiring of silver hair, with his immaculate white clothes, his compared to it.” kindly deference of manner, his ready thoughtfulness, and A 19th century celebrity of the first order, Mark Twain his sweet affection for children, was sufficient in himself helped to indelibly stamp Bermuda on the American to win anyone’s heart, without the prestige of the other consciousness not just as a consequence of what he wrote …” about the island but simply by virtue of his presence Trailed by small processions of young people and a here. His comings and goings to the island were routinely scattering of adults, he would lead expeditions up Pitts reported the newspapers of the day (one such dispatch, Bay Road to Point Shares and Spanish Point, travelling which appeared in papers throughout North America, either by donkey trap or by foot. read: “Mark Twain … sailed today for the summery “The shell road, smooth and hard, was bordered on climes of Bermuda “in search,” he said, “of rest, British either side by mossy stone walls,” a companion recalled humor, and an opportunity to appear logical in March in a of these outings. “Over these walls hung the beautiful white suit ...”). purple vines of the bougainvillea, heather with its small For the last three years of his life, between 1907 scarlet flower, or yellow clusters of the pigeon-berry …. and 1910, the island became his second home, with the “Here and there drooped a grove of palms where bananas author staying at both the Princess Hotel and the private clustered thickly on the branches, and then tall cocoanut residence “Bay House” just off Pitts Bay Road. trees swept up to greater heights. Just beyond a grove of His beloved wife Olivia had died in 1904 and Mark sweet-scented cedars a hospitable gateway broke the wall.

Twain was stricken by her loss. He had also been It bore an attractive legend, like Norwood, or Soncy or predeceased by two of his four children. Towards the end Olive Hill, and a driveway fringed by a marvelous tropic of his life Bermuda became something of a sanctuary for growth led windingly to some big, low, white coral-stone the increasingly lonely, increasingly desolate writer as house, over run with veranda-roses and all sorts of sweet, well as a temperate refuge from the bitterly cold winters perfumed flowers.” in Connecticut where he lived.

But his idyll as a surrogate grandfather to children By this time Mark Twain was arguably the most famous he met in Bermuda came to a sudden and tragic end man in America and one of the most famous men in the on Christmas Eve, 1909. On that night Mark Twains’ world. Everywhere else he went he was routinely courted youngest daughter, Jean Clemens, died at his house in by kings and presidents and maharajahs; lionised by Reading, Connecticut. The cause of death is believed to the press and the public. He was known to cause mob have been a heart attack she suffered during an epileptic scenes simply by stepping out onto a street in one of the seizure. Back in Connecticut for Christmas, the shock of trademark white linen suits which had become as closely Jean’s death caused the author’s own precarious health associated with him by the end of his life as his everto go into terminal decline. Suffering from a worsening present cigar and unkempt shock of hair. heart ailment in the spring of 1910 Mark Twain returned But in Bermuda he found the tranquility he was to Bermuda one last time hoping to recuperate. But he seeking towards the end of his life; the “peaceful sailed back to New York on April 12, 1910. He died in serenities” of the island which had so appealed to him Connecticut on April 21, 1910. on his very earliest trips remained unchanged and were One of the great writers of his day, and one of the seemingly unchangeable. Bermudians, by and large, greatest students of human nature in all of recorded recognised and respected their celebrated visitor’s history (he once claimed he could read human character desire for privacy. And while he politely declined those as well as he could read the Mississippi River), Mark invitations he did receive from social lion hunters hoping Twain was 74 years old when he died. Bouquets of to bag him for their dinner tables during this period, he Bermuda Easter lilies garlanded his coffin at a funeral did enjoy the company of the children he encountered service at New York’s Brick Church on April 23. in Bermuda during his final years (“I had reached the It was shortly before he left the island for the last grandfather stage of life without grandchildren, so I began time, fully aware that his end was approaching, that the to adopt them,” he remarked). author famously remarked: “You go to heaven if you And these young people warmly returned his affection. want to — I’d rather stay right here in Bermuda.” “… the Mark Twain of Roughing It and of Innocents And it’s fair to say his spirit does linger on here up Abroad, of Tom Sawyer and of Huckleberry Finn, became till the present day. - BNL Mr. Clemens of the Happy Island (Bermuda), and his BERMUDA VISITS, from page 6

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Mark Twain’s first Bermuda visit was in November 1867. He was a passenger on the SS Quaker City, 1,800 tons, powered by steam and sails. She had 73 passengers, was a converted US Navy warship which during the US Civil War had helped to impose a Union blockade of Southern ports.

Before the death of Mark Twain on April 21, 1910, he made sure to place an order for a good supply of Bermuda lilies to be sent to surround his coffin. This last Bermuda request was duly honored.

It is not generally known that between 1867 and 1910 Mark Twain spent a total of 187 days in Bermuda.

The main boatman to take Mark Twain sailing on his many visits to Bermuda was Captain Joe Powell who is the great-great grandfather of Bermuda National Library staff member, Randy York. In an interview in the Bermudian Magazine, February 1941, p 36 Captain Joe Powell is quoted as saying, “He was a beautiful gentleman, he always wore white-white suit, white shirt, white tie, white belt, white socks. And afterwards there was his white hair and white moustache.

Always ready with his jokes, he was. I took him on his first sail in Bermuda, and also on his last.”

Compiled by Randy York TWAIN, from page 3

What can attendees look forward to?

EH: Dr. Cindy Lovell will enlighten us to the life of Samuel Clemens with a look at his early years – what formed the man we all know as the author of “Tom Sawyer”. The audience will learn how a passion for one man’s art can lead to the creation of another man’s career in “Holbrook/ Twain”, and will see an example of that passion with the performance by local actor Gavin Wilson. I anticipate a lively discussion at our final event on the use of wit and satire in social commentary with a look at how Twain’s influence is still felt in broadcast and print journalism.

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Is there anything you hope people will take away from this event?

EH: I hope that everyone learns something new, and can be inspired by the legacy of the journalist and writer who become one of America’s most iconic social commentators.

Where can they find tickets for each event?

EH: Tickets are available at the Bermuda National Library’s circulation desk.