Mark Twain
The news of Mark Twain’s death in the hearts of his public is still greatly exaggerated (even though, yes, he’s still dead). For an exhibit at The Morgan Library & Museum from September 24, 2010 through January 2, 2011, The Berg Collection of The New York Public Library lent many manuscripts and objects. The show needed a catalogue; we helped.
One of the most interesting items in the exhibit and catalogue is an advertising broadside for a lecture tour Twain undertook to pay off enormous debts from a bad investment in a typesetting machine invented by James Paige (loss of today’s equivalent of $3 million). We brought visual coherence to the catalogue that includes essays by two curators, many images of Mark Twain manuscripts, and gouaches Twain commissioned in the late 1890s from artist Daniel Carter Beard. We managed as well as designed the project. We also typeset the catalogue, but on a machine masterminded by Steve Jobs.
Twain’s perennial political relevance, as well as the success of his recently-released autobiography (for which we can’t claim credit), has helped the sales of the exhibit catalogue.
