"Mark Twain mazurka," by Felix Kraemer. Milwaukee: Rohlfing & Co., Wm., 1880.

This week’s featured sheet music honors one of the great voices of American literature. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, best known by his pen name Mark Twain, was born on this day in 1835, two weeks after Halley’s Comet made its closest approach to the Sun. Celebrate the author’s birthday with the “Mark Twain mazurka” and the “Mark Twain waltz, ” from Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music in American Memory. The Music Division is also home to music from George Fischoff and Verna Tomasson’s stage adaptation of Twain’s The Prince and the pauper, whose off-Broadway debut provided a break-through role for entertainer John Davidson. See our Prince and the Pauper holdings in the presentation It’s Showtime! Sheet Music from Stage and Screen in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia. Read more about the Library of Congress’s Mark Twain-related materials in Today in History. Finally, listen to Harry E. Humphrey recite Twain’s story “Buck Fanshaw’s funeral”  on the National Jukebox:

And be sure to check out the Record of the Week selected by our neighbors in the Recorded Sound Reference Center. This week’s record is  “Mystery!” (medley fox trot) performed by Paul Biese and his Novelty Orchestra.