Cigars and Octagons

“Mark Twain and Livy took their family to visit Livy’s sister in Elmira, New York, where Livy grew up. Her sister, Susan Crane, did not like the cigar smoke from Mark Twain’s cigars in her house. She constructed an octagonal study where Mark Twain retreated to write during these visits, producing Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, and other works. Here we have an octagonal room with images he recalled from his Hannibal days and used in his books.”