The third edition of National Geographic Books' The Ten Best of Everything, edited by Nathaniel Lande and Andrew Lande, lists the house that Samuel L. Clemens and Olivia Langdon Clemens built, and where the family lived from 1874 to 1891, among such buildings as Leo Tolstoy's house in Russia, The Churchills' Blenheim Palace in England, and artist Claude Monet's home, Giverny, in France.
The only other American buildings on the list are Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and George Washington's Mount Vernon.
"We are very glad to have been named to this list of buildings of international importance," said Patti Philippon, Interim Executive Director of The Mark Twain House & Museum. "It's a recognition not only of Twain as an author of world stature, as our international guests remind us daily, but also of the iconic nature of 'The House that Mark Built' in the history of architecture and design."
The Ten Best of Everything notes "the soaring dramatic grand hall" and "the book-filled library, glass conservatory, and billiard room"; lists the important works by Twain written while the Clemenses lived in the house (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, among many others); and describes the "classic Victorian interiors designed by Louis C. Tiffany, Candace Wheeler, Lockwood DeForest and Samuel Coleman." It quotes Twain himself: "It is a