Learn about the mystery of Empty Mansions with author Bill Dedman

Hartford, Connecticut - The Mark Twain House & Museum presents an exciting evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Bill Dedman who will discuss his New York Times bestseller Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune, coauthored by Paul Clark Newell, Jr.  This event takes place on Tuesday, December 17, at 7:00 p.m. in the Mark Twain House Museum Center.

In 2009, when Bill Dedman noticed a grand home in New Caanan, Connecticut for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance.  At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.  Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health?  Why were her valuables being sold off?  Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money?  Come learn more about these mysteries and meet the author for a book signing after his talk.

About The Author: Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Bill Dedman's series of stories about the Clarks became the most popular feature in the history of NBC's news web site, topping 105 million page views. Bill is an investigative reporter for NBC. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting for his work for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He got his start in journalism at age 16 as a copy boy at The Chattanooga Times, and has written for The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and The New York Times.

This is a free event.  A book signing with the author will follow.

Sponsored by The Hartford.

The Mark Twain House & Museum (www.marktwainhouse.org ) has restored the author's Hartford, Connecticut, home, where the author and his family lived from 1874 to 1891. Twain wrote his most important works during the years he lived there, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

In addition to providing tours of Twain's restored home, a National Historic Landmark, the institution offers activities and educational programs that illuminate Twain's literary legacy and provide information about his life and times.

The house and museum at 351 Farmington Ave. are open Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., and Sunday, noon-5:30 p.m.  For more information, call 860-247-0998 or visit www.marktwainhouse.org.

Programs at The Mark Twain House & Museum are made possible in part by support from the Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development, Office of the Arts, and the Greater Hartford Arts Council's United Arts Campaign.