Mark Twain in Context

Abstract

Mark Twain in Context is one of forty-nine books currently in Cambridge University Press's Literature in Context series, which began in 2009. The series features short chapters from leading scholars who focus on literary, political, social and cultural influences, in addition to the legacies of the titled author. Putting Mark Twain in Context in context, some of the first authors in the series included James Joyce, Henry James, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and Charles Dickens. Mark Twain scholars might complain that it has taken so long for the publisher to get around to issuing a volume dedicated to Twain. This eleven-year delay, however, has worked to any complainer's advantage. Of the thirty-four chapters in this volume, over half are by emerging scholars whose work was not on the horizon a decade ago or by established scholars who have continued to write and expanded their research to different facets of Mark Twain's life and work.Each chapter of about four thousand words fits within one of five categories: Life; Literary Contexts; Historical and Cultural Contexts; Reception and Criticism; and Historical, Creative, and Cultural Legacies.Kicking off the Life category is a brief but concise biography of Mark Twain from Gary Scharnhorst. Following Scharnhorst's chapter is one from Alan Gribben titled “Reading.” Gribben describes Clemens as an “unpredictable devourer of the printed word” (23) and although Gribben does not confirm it, Clemens likely possessed one of the largest personal libraries of any of his contemporaries. John Bird contributes “Autobiography” and describes that work as “one of the most eccentric and innovative of all literary autobiographies, at once puzzling and fascinating” (24). Kevin Mac Donnell writes about “Biographies” and traces the earliest unauthorized biographies of Mark Twain to the authorized biography of Albert Bigelow Paine to a flood of biographies that followed after Paine died, and finally to a continuing stream of works devoted to shorter segments of his life. Mac Donnell concludes that two works by Ron Powers (Dangerous Waters, 1999; and Mark Twain: A Life, 2005) combined with Michael Shelden's Mark Twain: Man in White published in 2010 are a recommended “superbly written trilogy” (39).The second category, Literary Contexts, features ten chapters. Henry B. Wonham leads off with “Southwestern Humor,” a style of comedic writing featuring “deep conservatism in social and political sensibility” (51) and documents how Mark Twain drew on it and later transcended it. David E. E. Sloane follows with “Literary Comedians” and traces the influence of comedic writers from the Northeast on Mark Twain's development. Sloane states that Mark Twain found his genius by fusing the fictional narrative style of the Old Southwest with the vernacular style of Old Northeast literary comedians. Continuing along these same lines is Joseph A. Alvarez's chapter “Local Color and Regionalism” that documents numerous examples throughout Mark Twain's works. James E. Caron contributes “Early Periodical Writing” and discusses the influences of Bret Harte and Charles Henry Webb. According to Caron, Twain's success “stemmed from extensive experiment and careful calibration of a comic style” (88) as he shifted from newspaper contributions to writing for literary weeklies and periodicals. Jeffrey Melton in his chapter “Travel Writing,” states that Mark Twain soon learned that “A writer of periodical travel pieces could make a living; a writer of travel books could make a career” (91) as he discusses Mark Twain's travel books.The final five chapters in Literary Contexts include Peter Messent's “Short Fiction” discussing Mark Twain's work as a short story writer, a talent that was generally overlooked by his contemporaries. Bruce Michelson's chapter “Publishing” documents the publishing revolution in America and Europe as emerging technologies affected printing, illustration, circulation, and sales of books and magazines. These advances “took hold of his imagination, and they imbued what he wrote” (109). Tracy Wuster's chapter “Lectures and Speeches” examines the stage performances that were the “crucial means through which Samuel Clemens presented the character of Mark Twain to the public” (119). In a clever chapter titled “Contemporary Writers” Kelly L. Richardson compares two birthday parties and Mark Twain's participation and standing among his contemporaries at both: the 1877 John Greenleaf Whittier seventieth birthday celebration and his own 1905 birthday party organized by his publisher George Harvey. Rounding out this section is a chapter by Chad Rohman titled “Realism and Naturalism” discussing Mark Twain's craftsmanship in these genres and concluding “What we know for sure is that Twain was undeniably irreverent and honest, an author who, as Huck tells us, told the truth, mainly” (146).The third and longest section, Historical and Cultural Contexts, contains fourteen chapters. James S. Leonard's “Politics” traces Mark Twain's evolution from Republican to Mugwump to anti-imperialist. Leonard analyzes Twain's utopian sketch “The Curious Republic of Condour” and describes it “occupying fewer than three pages, yet it manages to bring together most of Twain's main political themes” (156). Lawrence Howe in “Business and Economics” contends that biographers who have relied on Samuel Webster's 1946 edition of Mark Twain, Businessman have been misled regarding Clemens's business acumen. Howe contends that previous biographers have failed to place his bankruptcy within the context of “the boom and bust economy of the times” (162). Howe offers evidence that Clemens was not a capricious investor. While many biographers give Henry H. Rogers a great deal of credit in guiding Clemens out of his bankruptcy by assigning his copyrights to Olivia Clemens, Howe presents evidence that Clemens was well aware of the intricacies and advantages regarding copyright assignments. Howe concludes Clemens “not only weathered his financial misfortune with integrity but also amassed a second fortune by applying more prudent financial management …” (169). Harold K. Bush tackles the difficult topic of Mark Twain's “Religion” and summarizes it is as a “‘divided nature’ response” (179) in his final years brought on by the loss of loved ones. Nathaniel Williams explores the progression of “Science and Technology” in Clemens's lifetime when “the cliché of the cloistered scientist obsessed with finding new (and perhaps impractical) knowledge spread alongside its correlative cliché of the inventor as an ingenious huckster …” (183). Williams documents Clemens as an early adopter of inventions and discusses the wide array of Mark Twain works anchored in science and technology. In the early years of his lifetime science was expected to overlap with theology, and by the end of his life it was increasingly at odds with religious sentiment.The next three chapters are dedicated to race and ethnicity. Shelley Fisher Fishkin's “African Americans” provides the succinct observation that “Twain was neither an activist nor a crusader; but his efforts to help his countrymen grapple with the absurd ways in which racism distorted American ideals and aspirations were, in their boldness and inventiveness, as prescient as they were astute” (199). Kerry Driscoll's chapter, “Native Americans,” documents Twain's inconsistent attitudes to Native Americans. Her chapter is followed by Hsuan L. Hsu's “Chinese,” focusing on Twain's sporadic sympathy for the Chinese. Hsu concludes that Mark Twain's views “cannot be understood in linear terms” (222) as a progression from comic to humanizing. Fishkin's initial observations ring true across this spectrum.Ann M. Ryan contributes “Cosmopolitanism.” She describes Clemens as member of a “cultural elite” as he traveled and lived around the world acquiring languages and political insights (224). Ryan explains that his cosmopolitanism was often obtained “from the window of a first-class cabin” and often the product of privilege (230); however, he was fully aware that travel and interaction with radically different cultures were “an essential remedy to the world's woes and his own worst impulses” (231).Two chapters on gender issues include Laura Skandera-Trombley's “Women and Domesticity” and begins by describing Samuel Clemens's childhood as a “movable feast of dysfunction” (233). She describes his Florida, Missouri, birthplace as a “rental” and states he suffered “public shame” when the family later lost their Hannibal home and were forced to live over the offices of Dr. Orville Grant (234). Skandera-Trombley characterizes Clemens's bachelor years in Nevada as time spent drinking, visiting prostitutes, leering at respectable women, and desiring to marry a rich wife. She concedes that after he married the wealthy Olivia Langdon the couple “enjoyed a deeply committed partnership” (240). However, in Skandera-Trombley's analysis, the novel Huckleberry Finn reflects Twain's own anxieties about losing his home and family. She describes Clemens as “helplessly driven to destroy” his own stability (240) with his “addiction to gambling with investments” (241) resulting in the family's homelessness as “he dragged his wife and daughters from rental to rental” (241). In the final analysis, reflecting a struggle with identity, she describes Clemens “as a restless, damaged soul” (242). Skandera-Trombley's views appear out of sync with characterizations presented by other scholars, including those from Howe regarding Clemens's financial acumen and Ryan's views on cosmopolitanism. Linda Morris's chapter on “Sexuality” follows Skandera-Trombley's. Morris makes clear that there is no evidence Clemens ever visited prostitutes. Morris documents sexuality and gender-switching in Mark Twain's works as he pushed conventional boundaries of his time.Greg Camfield's “History” delves into the roots of Clemens's belief that all history is based on prejudicial writings, and he examines history as portrayed in a number of Mark Twain's works. Also appearing in this section is a chapter by Emily E. VanDette titled “Animals and Animals Rights.” VanDette discusses Clemens's advocacy for animals and his involvement in the anti-vivisection movement that resulted in his writing “A Dog's Tale” in 1903. VanDette places his works in context with the increasing popularity of animal literature and “animal autobiography” such as the books Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders and Black Beauty by British author Anna Sewell along with the transnational “gospel of kindness” movement. Susan Harris's “Nationalism and Anti-Imperialism” is a concise and precise tracing of Mark Twain's anti-imperialist attitudes. Statements from Harris that resonate: “At bottom, he simply hated cruelty and the sight of suffering, whether it was a dog being tortured or a culture being destroyed” (277). She also explains “he transferred the demand for honor from self to country, from the individual to the collective, and evolved a political imaginary that held America's honor to be its most valuable property” (278–79). James Wharton Leonard contributes “Philosophy,” focusing on the core beliefs of Twain's determinism. He examines the work What Is Man?, “The Turning Point of My Life,” A Connecticut Yankee, and Pudd'nhead Wilson, a novel he describes as one with “environmental determinism as its central theme” (289).Reception and Criticism features three chapters. Joe Fulton's “Contemporary and Early Reception and Criticism (to 1960)” documents the beginnings of academic criticism of Mark Twain's works and the feuds that ensued, including those between Van Wyck Brooks and Bernard DeVoto. Fulton dates the rise of solid Mark Twain scholarship to this feud. The enormous task of documenting “Reception and Criticism (1960 to Present)” falls to Joseph Csicsila. Csicsila discusses the decades of Walter Blair, Henry Nash Smith, and Louis J. Budd. Csicsila highlights the research of John S. Tuckey as having “the most sustained and consequential impact on Twain studies” (306) when he uncovered the 1916 literary fraud perpetuated by Albert Bigelow Paine on Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. The amount of Mark Twain scholarship documented in the decades following the '60s snowballs, and Csicsila concludes, “It is hard to imagine that the next sixty years could accomplish anything even closely commensurate …” (313). Selina Lai-Henderson writes on “Translation and International Reception,” discussing some of the first Mark Twain works translated into Chinese and why the Chinese found them appealing. As an example of the hurdles translators faced with Huckleberry Finn, she claws a few passages from the Chinese translation back into English with results guaranteed to amuse. Although the Chinese admired Twain's boldness in satirizing the ills of his country in many of his works, they have no equivalent dialects in their arsenal for Huckleberry Finn.The final section of this volume is Historical, Creative, and Cultural Legacies. R. Kent Rasmussen, who has a forthcoming book on this topic, discusses “Film, Television, and Theater Adaptations.” Rasmussen's chapter would have been almost impossible to research a decade ago. However, with the growth of online searchable historical newspaper databases that include publications such as Motion Picture News, Variety, Motion Picture Herald, and many others, it is now possible to document the planning, script writing, production, and critics' reactions to an overwhelming number of Mark Twain entertainment ventures. Despite reviewers who praised many of these productions as ones that Mark Twain would have loved, Rasmussen shows that adaptations were made to sell tickets and please audiences without regard to the original works. Documenting a century of adaptations, Rasmussen surmises that “almost no adaptation of a Clemens work has ever completely satisfied serious Mark Twain devotees” (337). In conjunction with the earlier topics of Clemens's business savvy (and whether he had any) is a chapter by Judith Yaross Lee titled “Copyright, Trademark, and Brand.” Lee guides the reader through the legal definitions of these terms and discusses some of the court skirmishes in which Clemens was involved in establishing and protecting his rights. Lee's views show Clemens to be “a pioneer in America's systemic shift” (342) from an industrial economy to one based on information and advertising. She discusses the developments of Mark Twain “branding,” “brand extensions,” “pseudo-events” (publicity stunts), and brand “spin-offs.” Lee's contention that “Clemens showed marketing savvy ahead of his time” (348) is well supported. Hilary Iris Lowe provides the concluding chapter, “Mark Twain Sites.” Lowe begins with the declaration that commemorative sites dedicated to Mark Twain likely number more than any inspired by any other nineteenth-century American author. Her discussions cover California and the Mark Twain Papers at Berkeley; Nevada sites; the Mark Twain birthplace in Florida, Missouri; Hannibal, Missouri, and the influence of scholars such as Shelley Fisher Fishkin and Terrell Dempsey on museum representations of slavery in Twain's hometown; Twain's home in Hartford, Connecticut; and ultimately Elmira and Elmira College, “which has become one of the most important hubs for scholarly work on Twain” (360).As editor, John Bird has done an outstanding job of putting thirty-four diverse essays in context with one another, and they flow effortlessly. One might wish that a few additional topics could have been included, such as one on health and medical practices during Clemens's lifetime. As to constructive criticism—a handful of contributors cite references for direct quotes from Mark Twain's letters that are outdated (or discredited), such as Albert Bigelow Paine's 1917 edition of Mark Twain's Letters, as well as other secondary sources. The Mark Twain Papers features authoritative texts for many of these letters and many are available online with UCCL citation numbers. The Mark Twain Papers can also provide a copy upon request for any letter not yet online. Not to use this resource seems like trying to take a shortcut in scholarly research.Supplementary materials for this highly recommended volume include a chronology of Mark Twain's life by R. Kent Rasmussen (who also indexed this volume) and John Bird, thumbnail biographies of each contributor, and a suggested list of “Further Reading” tied to each essay.