Ken writes:
<<I keep asking around for someone, there has to be someone, who handled selecting the books and putting them on the shelves. I'd like to ask a few questions. I suspect that the truth, as in many historic interpretations, would break down an illusion.>>

Depends on a number of factors.

1)the staff of the museum. A lot of house museums really do a lot of research to replicate the furnishings to the letter, down to and including the books. It would seem likely that the Twain House would pay particular attention to this, given that he is a literary figure.

however, this can be affected by...
2) the level of documentary evidence available. There are some house museums with a wealth of information available regarding the contents of the house. I remember, I think it was William Faulkner's house in Oxford Mississippi had a full inventory of every book that was in his library. I don't remember that they had them on display, but they did provide an inventory list to examine. However, if there isn't that type of comprehensive list, the curator may simply have to resort to an informed guess.

3) the amount of funding available. Self-explainatory. If Twain had thousands of titles that are no longer part of the collection, they may not have the funding available to buy copies of the books.

4) balance of accuracy. Is it more appropriate to leave empty bookshelves in a house that was once full of reading material, or fill up the shelves with material that wasn't actually in the house? Given those two choices, there isn't really a good answer. Some may opt to maintain a visual continuity, and hope that the reading material isn't examined too closely. But any good museum should welcome the question.

-Heidi

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>