Happy Birthday, Sam...

In honor of this, the 174th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, I present to you this rare motion picture footage of Twain at his Redding, Connecticut estate with daughters Clara and Jean. It was taken by Thomas Edison in 1909, a year before Twain's death. Enjoy...

University of California Celebrates "Mark Twain at Play"

UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library will be hosting a special exhibit in December entitled "Mark Twain at Play", casting the spotlight on the man's leisure life. And this Friday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, visitors to the library will be able to get a sneak preview of the sure-to-be-fascinating exhibit.

Included in the collection will be such items of Clemensalia as:

• A 1909 film of Clemens at home in Redding
  
• Bills for cigars, tobacco and pipes
  
• Photos of his beloved cats
  
• A notebook used to help him navigate the Mississippi
  
• Handwritten guest lists
  
• A 1907 letter to a little girl he met on board a ship
• Sketches for an unfinished play about doctors
  

"He never sparked out," said exhibit curator Lin Salamo. "I'm interested in how a person's sense of joyfulness is a wellspring for creative work. Writing is so solitary. But what feeds into it?"

Clemens' daughter Clara Samossoud donated her father's private papers to the University of California in 1962, leading to the establishment three years later of the Mark Twain Project, dedicated to collecting and preserving as much of the author's work as possible.

"Mark Twain at Play" will be free to all on Friday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. After that, its regular run will be from December 1 to March 31.

Documentary Films in Redding

One of the shadiest and littlest-known stories of Twain's life involves the conspiracy against him that occurred near the end of his life when his secretary Isabel Lyon and his personal assistant Ralph Ashcroft tried to defraud him of his fortune. Now that story will be the subject of a PBS documentary, which recently filmed some "recreation" footage in the town of Redding, Connecticut, where Twain lived when the original events unfolded.

Lyon, who secretly was involved with Ashcroft, lulled the recently widowed Twain into a flirtatious friendship, even hoping to marry the ailing, elderly author. Meanwhile, Ashcroft had treacherously acquired power of attorney over his employer's finances. With the help of his daughter Clara, Twain was finally able to identify the threat and dismiss both of them. After her father's death, Clara saw to it that any mention of the conspirators was removed from Twain's public papers, which is why the details of the story were a mystery for so long.

But using collections of the author's private works and journals, Karen Lystra was able to finally piece it all together in her 2006 book Dangerous Intimacy: The Untold Story of Mark Twain's Final Years. And it's that book which has inspired the documentary currently being produced by History Film Inc., according to the Redding Pilot.

Producer Richard Altomonte made the trip to Redding, former site of Twain's famous Stormfield mansion, to film some key sequences, using several Twain aficionados from the town to play the parts of people like Clara and Jean Clemens, as well as Lyon herself. The film is expected to air on PBS later in the fall. For more info, visit historyfilm.com.