bloom’s classic critical views--mark twain

8/9/2019 Blooms Classic Critical Views--Mark Twain

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Blooms Classic Critical Views

mar k t wain


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mark twain

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Blooms Classic Critical Views: Mark Twain

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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Series Introduction x

Introduction by Harold Bloom x

Biography x

Personal 5U V (1863) 9U D ? (1863) 9U U (1863) 10

(1863) 10U (1863) 10U (1863) 11U (1863) 11U (1863) 12 (1864) 12U (1864) 14V C (1864) 15

U E (1864) 19H C, J. (1865) 20U (1866) 21 B (1870) 22E P H (1870) 23 E P H (1873) 27 B L E (1872) 32 (1873) 32 B (187374) 32B H (187677) 33U (1877) 38

ContentsQQQ


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B P T

B S (1877) 38 B C

F Fx P (1878) 45J C H (1881) 46 B (1886) 48

B P (1888) 49 (1889) 49H (1889) 51

J (189293) 52D D Q (1893) 52 B (190506) 65

J (1907) 66G B S S

Ex H (1907) 66F G (1908) 69J . J J F

H (1910) 69E.V. L E.V. L

P D (1910) 70

D H (1910) 71J (1912) 86 B (1913) 87

C.C. G S L. C (1913) 87

H . F (1922) 95

General 101

B H F C (1866) 109C H (1867) 110E E (1873) 111

H J (1875) 111 U J

B (1877) 112

J C H (1882) 114 D H (1882) 117

T H (1883) 125 D H T E S (1887) 126O T C-P (1887) 127

L O (1891) 131

Coes


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vC

C (1894) 135

H.H. B T P J (1895) 142

T D T L S (1896) 144

D H (1897) 145B (1899) 151

B (1900) 166

H T P (1901) 170

B H (1903) 173

B C G (1904) 174

H T P E (1904) 176

H L S (1905) 177

L P (1907) 179

S F C Q

(1907) 188

H (1909) 190

H.L. O B B (1909) 198

U (1910) 200

B B C

D (1910) 201

V (1910) 202

G O S B (1910) 209

S S (1910) 212

G.. C (1910) 214

J (1910) 219

H.L. H (1911) 224

D H (1913) 225

H.L. T B H (1913) 230

S F (1914) 235F L P (1915) 236

H.L. (1917) 250

L T S Y E

(1917) 255

H.L. S P

P S (1917) 256

H.L. (1917) 257

Ez P T V H.L. (1918) 262 D H (1918) 262

F (1919) 266

V B (1920) 270


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v

Works 305

The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County 307

(1866) 308

U P/ (1867) 308U T Cz B (1867) 309

U (1867) 310

U (1867) 311

U (1867) 311

U (1867) 311

U (1867) 312

U (1867) 313

U (1867) 314D D Q (1874) 315

T Icts Aa 315

U Virginia Cityerritorial Enterprise(1869) 318

D H (1869) 318

F (1869) 322

B H (1870) 323 B J Saturday Review (1870) 326 E (1870) 326

H H (1899) 333

O (1907) 337

D H (1910) 338

B P (1912) 339

T Ats f m Sawy 342

D H (1876) 344

D C (1876) 346

U Edinburgh Scotsman (1876) 351U Athenaeum (1876) 351 F. L (1876) 352

U L imes (1876) 353U New York imes (1877) 355 C (1894) 359

D H(1910) 359C V D (1921) 360

T Pic a th Pap 361

Hj Hj B (1881) 364

C


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U (1881) 368

E P (1881) 368

J C H (1881) 369

U Century Magazine (1882) 371H B S (1887) 372

Lif th Mississippi 372

U Chicago ribune (1883) 374L H (1883) 375

U Athenaeum (1883) 378 B (1883) 381

U Arkansaw raveler(1883) 382U Graphic (1883) 383 D H (1910) 384

T Ats f Hckly Fi 385

U D (1884) 391

B H F (1885) 393

B (1885) 398

F B. S L L (1885) 399

T S P O L (1885) 402

J C H H F

H C (1885) 403

J C H S

H (1885) 405

(1885) 405

S B F

H B B (1898) 406

H.L. P x (1910) 415C V D (1921) 417

A Cctict Yak i Ki Aths Ct 420

(1889) 423

(1889) 424

D H (1890) 426

D OB (1890) 429

U Speaker(1890) 430U Daily elegraph (1890) 432H C. V (1893) 435

D H F

H B B (1897) 439

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contributor

Te ragedy of Puddnhead Wilson 440Mark wain Tose Etraordinary wins (1894) 444William Livingston Alden (1894) 447

Unsigned Review in theAthenaeum

(1895) 448Unsigned Review in Te Critic (1895) 449Martha McCulloch Williams

In Re Puddnhead Wilson (1894) 450

Chronology 456

Inde 459


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Series IntroductionQQQ

Blooms Classic Critical Views is a new series presenting a selection o the most

important older literary criticism on the greatest authors commonly read in high

school and college classes today. Unlike the Blooms Modern Critical Views series,

which or more than 20 years has provided the best contemporary criticism on great

authors, Blooms Classic Critical Views attempts to present the authors in the con-

text o their time and to provide criticism that has proved over the years to be the

most valuable to readers and writers. Selections range rom contemporary reviews

in popular magazines, which demonstrate how a work was received in its own era,to proound essays by some o the strongest critics in the British and American tradi-

tion, including Henry James, G.K. Chesterton, Matthew Arnold, and many more.

Some o the critical essays and extracts presented here have appeared previously

in other titles edited by Harold Bloom, such as the New Moultons Library o Literary

Criticism. Other selections appear here or the rst time in any book by this publisher.

All were selected under Harold Blooms guidance.

In addition, each volume in this series contains a series o essays by a contemporary

expert, who comments on the most important critical selections, putting them incontext and suggesting how they might be used by a student writer to inuence his

or her own writing. This series is intended above all or students, to help them think

more deeply and write more powerully about great writers and their works.


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x

Introduction by Harold BloomQQQ

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1

The humorist, journalist, travel writer, novelist, and short story writer who took

the name Mark Twain in Nevada in 1863 was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in

Florida, Missouri, in 1835. I was born without teethand there Richard III had the

advantage o me, he joked in A Burlesque Biography (1871), continuing:

But I was born without a humpback, likewise, and there I had the advantage o

him. My parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously honest.

But now a thought occurs to me. My own history would really seem so

tame compared with that o my ancestors that it is simply wisdom to leave it

unwritten until I am hanged.

The amily moved to Hannibal, Missouri, in 1839, which, renamed as St.

Petersburg, would provide the location or the novels The Adventures o Tom Sawyer

and the early chapters oThe Adventures o Huckleberry Finn.

Sams ather died when Sam was only eleven years old. The loss, according to

the critic Van Wyck Brooks, set into motion an unresolved conict that would blight

Clemens as a writer. To support his amily, he began taking work, in due coursedropping out o school and working at various newspaper oces. He worked or

his brother Orions newspaper, which he ran when Orions business matters drew

him elsewhere. During his brothers leaves o absence, Sam would introduce satirical

attacks on local dignitaries and celebrities into the paper, to Orions great irritation.

Even more goading or Orion was the act that circulation improved under Sams

tutelage. Ater several arguments, Sam let Orions newspaper and wandered east

as a printer but returned to write or successive newspaper concerns (and ailures)

orchestrated by Orion.Sam Clemens amously graduated to working on the riverboats that traveled

the Mississippi River, rising to the hallowed position o a pilot. This, Clemens

would later say, might have suited him orever had not the railroad risen to such

Mark Twain

(18351910)

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prominence in those years, rendering the riverboats all but obsolete. Another

great and insurmountable obstacle or the steamboats was the onset o the

Civil War.

Ater an ill-starred and mainly arcical oray into warare, nominally ghtingon the Conederate side (recounted in The Private History o a Campaign That

Failed, 1885), Clemens abandoned the conict and went to the West Coast on

a commission as his brothers private secretary. Orion had been awarded the

position o secretary o the new state o Nevada. How Sam came to Nevada and

quickly switched vocations, rst to silver miner, then to journalist, is recounted in

his third book, Roughing It(1872).

In Virginia City, Nevada, Sam Clemens took his better-known nom de plume and

as Mark Twain made a name or himsel (or, at least, earned notoriety) on the West

Coast. Through the interventions o eastern humorist Artemus Ward (whose actual

name was Charles Farrar Browne), who was then touring parts o the West with his

burlesque lecture, Mark Twain was introduced to a New York readership (1865). His

story o Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog soon garnered international renown, to

Twains bemusement (and to some consternation). Twains rst book, titled ater and

centered on the jumping rog, ollowed, published in New York in 1867.

Mark Twain was then contracted to write letters rom a cruise ship (the Quaker

City) bound or Europe and the Holy Land. These letters gave rise to The Innocents

Abroad (1869), rom which his ortune and ame began to grow signicantly. In

England, particularly, unscrupulous publishers pirated all and any o Twains

newspaper work, even pieces that were not actually by Twain. From this imposition

sprang Twains obsession with international copyright law.

For his next project, Twain essayed a collaborative novel, The Gilded Age, in

1873, which was only compromised by the contributions o his staid collaborator,

Charles Dudley Warner (a New England neighbor o Twains). Twains subsequent

solo eort, The Adventures o Tom Sawyer (1876), ared better. A quick succession o

books ollowed, with Twain going back and orth among genres, rom travel writing

and autobiography to historical ction, then to autobiographical ction, all the

while continuing to produce humorous sketches and short stories: A Tramp Abroad

(1880), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Lie on the Mississippi (1883), The Adventures

o Huckleberry Finn (1884), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court (1889), The

American Claimant(1892), Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894), The Tragedy o Puddnhead

Wilson (1894), Personal Recollections o Joan o Arc (1896), Tom Sawyer, Detective(1896), Following the Equator (1897), The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other

Stories and Essays (1900), Adams Diary(1904), What Is Man?(private printing, 1906),

Christian Science (1907), Captain Stormfelds Visit to Heaven (1907), and Is Shakespeare

Dead?(1909).

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At times, Twain was working on several works simultaneously; a recurring criticism

was that within any one work he veered inexplicably between dierent genres.

This conusion was mirrored in Twains movements and the relocation o

his household. First by necessity and later by habit, Mark Twain led a peripateticexistence or most o his lie. As Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn would be led on

excursions outside St. Petersburg, lighting out or the Territory, so it went or their

author. A summary o Twains complicated movements is given in Merle Johnsons

Bibliography(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1910), pp. 149150:Those who value Mr. Clemens speeches and ugitive eorts will nd use

or the appended Chronology o his various residences and travels as an aid

or search in newspaper les and other local sources.

186164, in Nevada; in summer o 1864 to San Francisco; 1865, in

Caliornia; in 1866, a trip to Hawaii, then back to San Francisco; 1867, across

the isthmus to New York, thence to Washington, back to New York, sailing

in June on Quaker City trip to the Orient; 1868, in Washington, thence in

March to San Francisco, and back in September to New York; in all o 1869, to

Bualo, balancing between Bualo and Elmira until the all o 1870, removing

to Hartord; in July, 1871, to England; most o 1872 and 1873 between London

and Hartord; 1874 to 1877 in Hartord, with summers in Elmira; winter o187778 in Chicago, then to Europe; 1879, in England, France, and Germany,

until September, then back to U. S.; 1880, until 1890, mainly in Hartord, with

summer changes, mostly to Elmira, home o Mrs. Clemens; most o 1891

929394 in Europe, wintering in Aix-les-Bains, Berlin, Florence, and Paris in

turn; 1895, to Europe, then back or lecture tour o U. S.; leaving Vancouver

or round-the-world trip.

Twains personal lie was necessarily aected by this propensity to drit. Hisprivate lie is best divided between his Jacksonian bachelor years spent along the

Mississippi River and among the silver mines o Nevada and his Victorian lie as a

devoted husband and ather, when he relocated to the civilized East Coast realms o

New York State and Connecticut. Twain married Olivia Langdon, whom he had allen

in love with ater rst seeing her image in a locket (her brothers), while on the Quaker

Citycruise. They remained together until Livys death in 1904 in an apparent state

o domestic bliss (though recent studies nd chinks in this guise, almost inevitably).

Twain and Livy had a son who died at less than two years o age, a loss or whichTwain characteristically blamed himsel. O three daughters, Twain outlived all but

one o them. Domestic bliss, its crushing collapse, and the deep, urious cynicism that

ollowed, characterized Twains last years. His nal project was an autobiography,

vast and uid, which he dictated to secretaries and which would be distinguished

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by its remarkable candor. So large and rambling are the manuscripts that they have

never been satisactorily ordered nor yet printed in their entirety.

Twain was a celebrity as much as he was a writer, and he enjoyed socializing

and the limelight (unlike writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne or Herman Melville).While notoriety brought him into contact, however eeting, with the majority o

his contemporaries in American (and English) literature, his ondness or publicity

and a dynamic social lie detracted somewhat rom his writing. Even the novelist

and critic William Dean Howells, who was Twains oremost riend and champion,

remarked that I hate to have him eating so many dinners, and writing so ew books.

While Twain was popular with readers, he was a popular target or the critics. Twain

addressed this problem in a letter to Andrew Lang in 1890, in which he argued that

I have never tried . . . to help cultivate the cultivated classes. . . . And I never had

any ambition in that direction, but always hunted or bigger gamethe masses.

This state has been rectied, o course, but that rehabilitation was done mostly

posthumously.

As can be seen rom the accounts that ollow, Twain aggravated and oended as

much as he charmed and enchanted. His career veered and wobbled, both critically

and nancially. A characteristic behavior that would haunt Twain through the end o

his lie was an inveterate propensity to invest in crackpot patents that ailed to turn

a prot.

Mark Twain died, in 1910, at the age o seventy-our. He was survived by one

daughter, Clara.

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The irst chapters are ascinating, Dwight Mcdonald writes o The Adventures o

Tom Sawyer, or here . . . we see a mass-culture hero taking orm. The same might

be said o the earliest glimpses o Mark Twain, as he takes that name in Virginia City,

Nevada, when he was writing or that citys Enterprise newspaper. Mark Twains or-

mative years as a writerater he had served as a pilot on the Mississippi River and

apprenticed or his brothers newspapers in Missouri and Iowawere spent serving

the mining communities on the rontier. This vital period o his lie is potentially and

requently overshadowed by his later, international career. This prehistory, whichprecedes his novels, romances, and travel books, his hobnobbing with millionaires

and celebrities, and his acclaimed ater-dinner speeches nevertheless saw the

proper development o the Mark Twain persona. It was in this guise and under this

name that Clemens earned notoriety, i not necessarily the sort o ame he would

later seek.

Students may nd it valuable to compare the earliest Twainalternately called

a bee-eating, blear-eyed, hollow-headed, slab-sided ignoramus, a pilering

reporter, and a liar, apoltroon and a puppyto the grampa gure o Twains nalyears (a aade, o course) or to the late twentieth centurys critically rehabilitated

and serious author. Can the author oPersonal Recollections o Joan o Arcbe detected

in the blackguard o the mining camps?

One o the best sources to gauge Twains metamorphosis is Ambrose Bierce,

the acerbic author o the Devils Dictionary(among other works), who lurks behind

Twains career as a sort o less successul doppelganger (in one late letter, he even

remarks on their mutual resemblance). While Bierce stands or wit, as he says, Twain

stands or humor, and, by popular standards, humor prevailed over wit. Increasinglyoverlooked and already bitter by nature (he was dubbed Bitter Bierce, as well as

Dod Grilea imsy anagram o God Riled), Bierce serves as a deating Momus

gure (the personication o censure and mockery in Greek mythology) or Twain,


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who was near (i not with) Twain rom the early days, whether in San Francisco or

London, and who observed him to the last.

For the most part, over time, personal estimates o Twain only increase in their

warmth. By the end o his lie, Twain was a well-established clubbable man; that is,a joiner o clubs. He was welcomed by elite groups o wealthy men or by conrmed

literary successes. He was also a man o the people, inasmuch as he liked to parade

down Fith Avenue on a Sunday morning as churchgoers were emerging rom St.

Patricks Cathedral. Yet when approached by Theodore Dreiserthen an aspiring

unknownTwain is cagy and remote. Thus accounts o the man inevitably vary. The

obvious question to be asked, which necessarily can not be answered, is, which was

the real Twain? This query is asked more than once in the texts that ollow. Dreisers

account gives us an interesting outsiders view. Henry W. Fishers accounts have a

certain level o intimacy but also contain an unusual level o candor, that cannot be

ound even in the memoirs o Twains closest riend, William Dean Howells.

One might well ask, how are these snippets o inormation relevant? How should

they be used as literary data? A good example, i perhaps excessive, is provided by

Van Wyck Brooks in The Ordeal o Mark Twain (1920). Following the publication o

Arthur Bigelow Paines Mark Twain: A Biography (1912), critics were provided with a

vast repository o data, which coincidedortunately or unortunatelywith the

advent o psychoanalysis. Private lives were henceorth air game in literary (or

indeed any orm o) analysis. Even Brookss toughest opponent, Bernard DeVoto,

conceded that Brookss system was the most important critical idea o the last

pre-war and rst post-war decades. In rapid succession, the critical movement

called New Criticism would challenge such methodology, with critics such as John

Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Cleanth Brooks insisting that the lie o the author is

o no relevance to the text, which is wholly separate and an independent entity. This

argument continues, scarcely abated, to this day.


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P 9

Unsigned Virginia at Midnight(1863)

The author o this short item tells irst o how he climbed Mount

Davidson at night to look over the city, at the summit pulling out the

comorter that Mark Twain had pressed upon usa bottle o gin. And

thenMark Twains bottle, never ull, being emptywe slowly descend-

ed. The ollowing description picks up the trail at the station house.

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Artemus Ward (1864)Artemus Ward was the pen name o Charles Farrar Browne, the humorist

born in Waterord, Maine, in 1834. Brownes biography mirrors that o

Samuel Clemens in many ways. His ather died young, and he and his

elder brother, Cyrus, both went into the printers trade to support their

mother. Charles worked in Boston or a time, setting type or The Carpet-

Bag, a humor journal that printed the irst known Samuel Clemens storyin the East. Browne, it can be conjectured, set the type or Clemenss

words. Browne made quicker progress in the humor line than Clemens

did, travelling south as ar as Arkansas, working as a printer and a teacher

at times beore he wound up in Cleveland. Working at that citys principal


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P 13

newspaper, the Plain Dealer, Browne made his name, writing a local

editors daily column on whatever was happening at the time. This job

let room or whimsy, and among Brownes many burlesques, hoaxes,

and one-line squibs appeared a series o ake letters rom an illiteratesmall-time showman who signed himsel Artemus Ward. Artemus ast

became a national phenomenon andin timean international one.

Browne was the irst touring humorist, with his burlesque lectures that

rambled and digressed rom their attested subject. It is certain that his

perormances had a proound eect on Mark Twains direction ater he

saw and met Browne in Nevada.

Charles Brownes ame was large enough that he traveled to England

with his burlesque panorama show. He was at the height o popularity

when he became ill in England, and he died there o tuberculosis in

Southampton in 1867, at the age o thirty-three. Ironically, the two crossed

paths once more when the ship returning to New York with the body o

Artemus Ward passed the ship called the Quaker City, about to depart

with Twain on board. At the time, Twain had been contracted to write the

letters that would make up The Innocents Abroad.

The name o Artemus Ward will recur in a number o the critical

extracts in this volume. Artemus Ward was at rst a useul name or

Mark Twain to cite in order to get ahead, particularly on the East Coast.

As Twains reputation spread nationally and then internationally, his

continuing association with Artemus perhaps began to chae. The works

o Artemus remained in print or more than orty years ater Charles

Brownes death in 1867. Even in his last days, Twain had to contend with

the comparisons. While many critics, ollowing Bernard DeVoto, now

minimize the inuence, it cannot reasonably be underrated. Artemus

Ward, contrary to popular belie, was not simply a dialect humorist or

a misspeller. His newspaper work in Cleveland (little o which was ever

published in book orm) had a powerul inuence and was syndicated

across the United States. Mark Twain would have been entirely amiliar

with this work, as well as the Artemus Ward letters.

In this letter, which has been wilully misread by a recent Twain

biographer to signal some kind o romantic relationship between the two

writers, Ward/Browne promises to get Twain published in the New YorkMercury. Robert Henry Newell (a humorist himsel, writing as Orpheus C.

Kerr) was the literary editor o the Sunday edition. He was connected with

the New York Bohemians and so with Artemus Ward. Wards Bohemian

connections would also lead to another early eastern appearance by


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Mark Twain, in the Saturday Press, edited by Henry Clapp, Jr., who appears

later in this section.

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Various Correspondents (1864)EEPSE OFFCE,

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Virginia,May 21, 1864

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S E,May 21,1864

James Laird, Esq.Sir: Union .

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. peremptorily .

Sam. L. Clemens

Oice o the Virginia Daily Union,

Virginia, S E,May 21st, 1864

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Enterprise Oice, Virginia City

May 21, 18649 , p.m.

James L. Laird, Esq.Sir: Y peremptorilydemanded satisaction o you, without alternative j ,

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Sam. L. Clemens

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erritorial Enterprise, 24, 1864

Unsigned Editorials (1864)

HOITY! TOITY!!

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Henry Clapp, Jr. (1865)In the annals o canonical American literature, Henry Clapp, Jr. made a

lasting contribution in being an early riend, backer, and publisher o

Walt Whitman. He also published Mark Twains story The Jumping Frog

o Calaveras County in his journal the Saturday Press, purely as a avor to

Artemus Ward. Clapp, a ormer Massachusetts temperance lecturer and

thenater a spell in Parisa radical advocate o ree love, was also

the leader o the group o Bohemians that met at Charles Pas beer

cellar on Broadway at Bleecker Street. Walt Whitman and Artemus Ward


38/480

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were also among the distinguished set that gathered at Pas. Whitman

brought Emerson to Pas once, but he recoiled at the threshold.

This brie notice announces the appearance o the Jumping Frog

story. The dialect humorist Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) debutedin the same issue. Billings was, with Artemus Ward and Petroleum V.

Nasby, another humorist with whom Twain would continue to be classed

or the rest o his lie, to the irritation o his supporters.

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Unsigned (1866) This legend o how Samuel Clemens got the name Mark Twain is less

quaint than the one Mark Twain preerredthat he took the name rom

riverboat Captain Isaiah Sayers. For that reason, it might be true. Another

legend, again relating to drinks rather than river navigation, was pro-

posed by the Eureka Sentinelon May 8, 1877.

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Ambrose Bierce (1870)Ambrose Bierce was the American short story writer and humorist who

knew Mark Twain in San Francisco and then again in London. Dod Grile

(Mr. Bierce) is a personal riend o mine, I like him exceedingly, Twain

wrote in a letter, beore adding that there is humor in Dod Grile, but or

every laugh that is in his book there are ive blushes, ten shudders and a

vomit. The laugh is too expensive. Their riendship, then, was not easy

or unequivocal. Bierces so-called oicial biographer, Walter Neale,

claimed that Bierce hated Twain. Certainly there is a hint o bile about

these pieces, early incarnations o literary gossip. Bierce was actually

habitually acerbic, and he maintained that this was strictly business.

Students comparing these two major writers o American humor

will nd these brie articles o great value. No small amount o energy

has been expended by critics in the last hundred years to try to solve

the mystery o Mark Twains marriage. It had the appearance o being a

harmonious match, all the more reason or Dwight Mcdonald to doubt

the supposed domestic bliss. Late in lie, Twain was unusually receptive

to a emale advocate o ree love, while reusing absolutely to publicly

endorse her views. To Theodore Dreiser, Twain claimed that ater the rst

ew years o marriage, men dont love their wives, and they are not strictly

aithul. Is there some truth to the theory that Twain was attracted to Livy

or her respectability, i not or her money? Ambrose Bierce was probably

the rst person to voice such suspicions, and as such he is the ather o a

long-lived and still-vibrant critical tradition.

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ON THE MARRIAGE OF MARK TWAIN

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27, 1870

Edward Peron Hingston (1870)Edward Peron Hingston was an impresarioa promoter and tour man-

ager or stage perormers. He promoted the Scottish magician John

Henry Anderson, the Wizard o the North, but his best-known workat

least to literary posteritywas his promotion o and tour with Charles

Farrar Browne, the Maine humorist known as Artemus Ward.Hingston emphasizes the rontier ocus o Twains position (writing

rom ten years later, when Twains international ame was assured) and

the remoteness and wildness o Twains surroundings (I might come

to grie?). This perspective is especially noteworthy since it is one o


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the earliest English views o Mark Twain. As Hingston notes, he ound

Twain when he had scarcely rendered his name amiliar to the public o

Boston or New York. Hingston saw, then, the process by whichthrough

Artemus Wards eastern contacts, including Robert Henry Newell o theMercuryand Henry Clapp, Jr. o the Saturday Pressa way was cleared or

Mark Twains promotion in the East.

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Attributed to Edward Peron Hingston (1873)In this unsigned introduction to the pirated collection Choice Works o

Mark Twain (London: John Camden Hotten, 1873), E.P. Hingston recalls

events during time spent in Virginia City with Artemus Ward and Mark

Twain. In an authors copy o the book, Mark Twain wrote in the margin:

All o this is untrue. S.L.C. However, directly underneath, scrawled out,

is the additional remark that it would be useless rubbish i true. Mark

Twain wrote these comments or the publishers Chatto and Windus

when they took over the accounts o John Camden Hotten ater he died.

What had been a pirated edition became, with Twains consent and

assistance, an oicial edition. This is a well written biographical sketch,

Twain wrote across the text. I Hotten wrote it I wholly lay aside the

ancient grudge I bore him.

However, this particular part was written by Hingston, not Hotten,

and Twain excised it rom the subsequent text. This, like several other

remarks and gestures rom Twain, points to an anxiety o inuence with

Artemus Ward. What else in this story might Twain have preerred not to

be republished?

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Ambrose Bierce Letter from England (1872) [H] .

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Anthony Trollope (1873)Anthony Trollope was an esteemed English novelist. Joachim Miller was

the poet o the Sierras, a sel-promoting extrovert who dressed the part

o the rontiersman and entertained Victorian London literary society.

He was in London at the same time as Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain,

and the three were acquainted. Twain and Bierce looked on Miller and his

attention-grabbing stunts with distaste andpossiblya little envy.

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Ambrose Bierce (187374)

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Bret Harte (187677)Francis Bret Harte was the author o countless popular short stories o

the West, including The Luck o Roaring Camp and The Outcasts o

Poker Flat. He was the editor and ounder o San Franciscos Overland

Monthly, or which Mark Twain had also written. This correspondence demonstrates how the spirit o rontier

journalism and literature and the wild camaraderie and rough good

will o the early days were exhausted by the 1870s. Former riends were

reduced to cavilling over small details. It resembles rather the mining

boom itsel, in a sense, in which a democratic dream gives way to a sti,

industrial system.

Details o Ah Sin, based on a dialect poem o the Caliornian mining

community, became world amous. Hard up and looking to cash in,Harte proposed a collaboration with Twain that dramatized characters

rom both their works. Twain agreed. This was the deal that dissolved

into acrimony and arce. Twain eventually rewrote much o Hartes work

(leaving hardly a oot-print o Harte in it anywhere, he told Howells),

although many years later he conceded that Hartes was the best

part o it.

This selection serves to highlight two constants in Samuel Clemenss

lie: an attraction to business that necessitated his oten blunderinginvolvement in ithere the American Book Companyand then his

rejection o close riends or slights imagined or otherwise. Twain went

rom warmth to almost vicious contempt or Bret Harte over this matter.

QQQ


51/480

34

TO SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, DECEMBER

45 F ,

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interest on advances ,

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Second : Nopublisher o any o my works, at any day, or time has done as badly as he has.

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preposterous , . , .

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Unsigned (1877)Like the legend published in the Nevada City Transcript, on February

22, 1866, this version o how Mark Twain took his name is less latter-

ing to the author. When he was reinventing himsel or a more genteel

audiencea constant process or Mark Twainit was always best to

minimize such details as excessive drinking. The question remains: Which

was the real source?

Coal Oil Tommy was a legendary proigate who inherited a ortune in

oil and lost it through extravagant, ostentatious dissipation. He wound

up, ironically, hauling oil or ty cents a barrel.

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8, 1877

Albert Bigelow Paine The WhittierBirthday Speech (1877)

While this account is rom Paines later biography, it is included here

because it contains several vital documents within it, unavailable else-

where, particularly Ellen Tucker Emersons letter to Twains wie.

This speechwhich quickly became legend, as Paine recalls (and asis evidenced by Ambrose Bierces reaction in the ollowing entry)is

perhaps most interesting and important or showing most clearly how

Mark Twain stood in the eyes o Bostons Brahmin society, how he

tried so hard to be accepted but had that recalcitrant blundering imp


56/480

P 39

o the perverse (as Paine has it). Most notable, arguably, is Ellen Tucker

Emersons response, telling us o Emersons enjoyment o Mark Twains

workscantly apparent otherwise. Thematically, in their later work,

there is much that unites the two writers. Emerson began to reevaluatehis earlier armations. His sons death was one o the main causes o his

turn to doubt and uncertainty.

Mark Twain was orgiven by Emerson, and they met again, at another

dinner where he redeemed himsel with a more moderate speech or Oliver

Wendell Holmes. Twain and Howells went to Concord, Massachusetts,

to visit Emerson casually a ew weeks beore Emerson died. What they

spoke o remains a mystery, perhaps their mutual dislike or the English

pirate o their works, John Camden Hotten.It is noteworthy that the orgiveness is directed by Emersons daughter

to Twains wie, as though this was the gendered role.

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Mark wain: A Biography: Te Personaland Literary Lie o Samuel Langhorne

Clemens, Y: H B, 1912, . , . 603610

Ambrose BierceComment on a Famous Faux Pas (1878)

This mocking voice rom Caliornia reminds Twain, in his darkest moment,

o what he used to be and what he is trying to orgetone lowdown and

disliked by the police. Ambrose Bierce persists in Twains biography as a

reminder o how he was. However, Bierce also alters the acts. Twains

Whittier birthday speech described Emerson, Longellow, and Oliver

Wendell Holmes as tramps; it kept Whittier out o it.

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Mk w46

Joel Chandler Harris (1881)At this time in 1881, Twain was gathering himself and others for a lecture

tour with George Washington Cable. Joel Chandler Harris, the author of

the Uncle Remus tales, was one of Twains choices for a fellow lecturer,

until Twain realized that he was intensely shy and that the project was

thus impracticable.

QQQ

he Constitution, Atlanta, Ga.

Editorial Rooms, 4 Ag, 1881

My dear Mr. Clemens:

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64/480

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48

Ambrose Bierce (1886)In this article, Ambrose Bierce makes a sharp division between Mark

Twains early and later work. Bernard DeVoto would, in due course, come

to a similar conclusion, inding that all o Mark Twains best work had

been produced by 1890.

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Walt Whitman (1889)Although there have been several attempts to compare Mark Twain, in

his career and his works, to the poet Walt Whitman, the two had virtu-

ally no connection. Twain kindly made some charitable donations to

Whitman when asked, but one wonders whether he ever read the poet.

In a letter written to congratulate Whitman on his seventieth birthday,

the critic Dwight Mcdonald notes that instead o congratulating the

age on Whitman, it congratulates Whitman on the age. Indeed, in the

letter Twain rambles on about the industrial advances o the day. EdgarLee Masters singled this letter out as evidence o Twains overweening

philistinism: The poet, according to Twain, was to be congratulated or

having lived in the age which had seen the amazing, ininitely varied

and innumerable products o coal-tar.


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What Whitman thought o Twain gradually emerged as the volumes

making up Horace Traubels With Walt Whitman in Camden began to be

published (the nine volumes took ninety years to be published, starting in

1906). These texts, with Traubel recording verbatim Whitmans proverbialtable talk, are the source o the ollowing remarks. They are made o

the cu, and one suspects that Twain did not overly occupy Whitmans

mind. Nevertheless, Whitmans comments are o course invaluable to any

student writing a comparison o Whitman and Twain.

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William James (189293)William James was a considerable orce in American philosophy and in

the early study o psychology, authoring numerous works including The

Principles o Psychology (1890) and The Varieties o Religious Experience

(1902), as well as espousing the philosophy o pragmatism and coining the

term stream o consciousness. He taught philosophy and experimental

psychology at Harvard, and at Radclie College he taught and signiicantly

inluenced Gertrude Stein. His brother was the novelist Henry James.

While Henry made no great connection with Twain (although they were

both American novelists living in England at the same time), William

somewhat surprisinglyormed a riendship with him.

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Dan De Quille (1893)Reporting with Mark Twain

Dan De Quille, the Washoe Giant, was the nom de plume o William

Wright, an Ohioan who had let his wie and ive children to seek silver

in the Nevada mining hills. He ell into journalism, or which he had a


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greater aptitude, writing or the Virginia City Enterprise. When he went

on leave to see his amily, Samuel Clemens was brought in to replace

him. He had contributed to the Enterprise under the name Josh, and

had suitably impressed the editor. On Dans return, he and Clemens (nowateully recast as Mark Twain) became close conederates. When asked,

the perplexed colleagues o Twain and De Quille opined that they elt

sure that Dan would enjoy the wider and greater success, not Mark. This

was amously not the case.

Ater Twain let Nevada or good, the two ell out o contact until 1875,

when, by chance, each man wrote to the other and their letters crossed

in the mail. From this connection, De Quille visited Twain in Connecticut

and stayed with him, writing The Big Bonanza, his history o the gold andsilver rushes, or Twains publishers. Ater this, De Quille drited back to

Nevada and out o Twains interest. De Quille died in 1898.

Students interested in the development o the persona o Mark

Twain will nd an excellent account here o how the transormation was

enacted. In other details De Quille is equally captivating, such as in his

description o the slashed baize o the tabletop. When he visits Twain

in Connecticut years ater, De Quille looks or more such slashes in vain.

What might such a peculiar yet authentic detail suggest about how MarkTwain himsel had changed in that time? Clues to Twains early identity

are scattered through this article. While the recollections o William Gillis

may be colored by the years and urther biased by a raconteurs innate

tendency to exaggerate, De Quilles account is reliable, with a reporters

keen eye or the unique and the signicant.

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George Bernard ShawShaw Meets Twain and

Explains Him (1907)George Bernard Shaw (18561950) was the Irish playwright and critic,

author o numerous well-known plays including Arms and the Man, Saint

Joan, Pygmalion, and MajorBarbara. His bibliography is a long one. Shaw

was a controversial igure with strongly held views. He was a central ig-

ure in the English socialist Fabian Society.

This article describes a chance meeting between Shaw and Mark

Twain. Shaws biographer, Archibald Henderson, was on the same boat

and train as Twain and beriended him. He would publish, in 1911, the rst

proper biography o Twain.

It is worth noting that the work Shaw asks Mark Twain about is

The Jumping Frog o Calaveras County. Even in 1907, Twains best-

known work was, to some, his rst internationally published one. Shaw

also questions, the degree o seriousness in his work, as many others

would ater Twains death. Twains own antics at the impromptu press

conerence seem to belie Shaws own claims. Students interested in

popular and critical perceptions and receptions o Mark Twain may nd

useul material here.

O urther interest is Twains closing description o his lie, which

seems almost a spoo o his actual lie. Is there even a joke here, or is

Twain speaking in earnest? Dierentiating between the two becomes

increasingly complex as Twains lie and writing proceed.

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E.V. Lucas E.V. Lucas andTwain at a Punch Dinner (1910)

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bloom’s classic critical views--mark twain

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