Mark Twain and the Travelling Tome: Tracing the Ownership of the James Medical Dictionaries
On the evening of Tuesday, April 28, 2009 in the old library, Professor Lynn Laskowski and Dr. Fran Coan presented the history of aset of old medical dictionaries. Originally owned by a Virginia family, the volumes were confiscated by a Treasury agent during the Civil War and eventually acquired by Mark Twain, who referenced the volumes while writing several of his works. At the request of a prominent Hartford physician, Dr. Edward K. Root, Twain donated the dictionaries to the Hartford Medical Society.The James dictionaries touched and connected many lives, and their story illuminates numerous aspects of Connecticut and United States history from the eighteenth century into the twentieth. The presentation combined a discussion of medicine, literature, history, and genealogy, with an exploration of research sources and methods.
Part I | Part II | Part III
