Mark Twain - Notebook #18, Feb. - Sept. 1879

Primary Works

The Innocents Abroad, 1869; Roughing It, 1872; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876; A Tramp Abroad, 1880; The Prince and the Pauper, 1882; Life on the Mississippi, 1883; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889; The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy of Those Extraordinary Twins, 1894; Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, 1896; Following the Equator , 1897; Autobiography, 1924; The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts, 1969; What is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings, 1973.

The Oxford Companion to Mark Twain. NY: Oxford UP, Dec. 2002

The Works of Mark Twain. Volume 8. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Edited by Victor Fischer and Lin Salamo with the late Walter Blair. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003. (Book Review)

Selected Bibliography: Books

MT's Autobiography. Ed. Albert Bigelow Paine. NY: Harper and Brothers, 1924.

Burns, Ken, Dayton Duncan, and Geoffrey C. Ward. Mark Twain, An Illustrated Biography. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001. (Book Review)

Emerson, Everett H. The Authentic MT: A Literary Biography of Samuel L. Clemens. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1984. PS1331 .E47

Fatout, Paul. MT in Virginia City. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964.

Harris, Susan K. The Courtship of Olivia Langdon and MT. NY: Cambridge UP, 1997. (Book Review)

Hill, Hamlin L. MT: God's Fool. NY, Harper & Row 1973. PS1332 H5

- - -. "Samuel Langhorne Clemens (MT)." Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Realists and Naturalists. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1982.

Hoffman Andrew. Inventing MT: The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. NY: William Morrow and Company, 1997.

---. Mr. Clemens and MT: A Biography. NY, Simon and Schuster, 1966. PS1331 .K33

Kaplan, Justin. MT and His World. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1974. PS1331 K325

Michelson, Bruce. MT on the Loose. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995.

Miller, Robert Keith. MT. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1983.

Paine, Albert Bigelow. MT: A Biography. NY: Harper and Brothers, 1912.

Powers, Ron. Dangerous Waters: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain. NY: Basic Books, 1999.

Rasmussen, R. Kent. MT A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Writings. NY: Facts on File, 1995.

Skandera-Trombley, Laura E. MT in the Company of Women. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1994.

Baetzhold, Howard G., and Joseph B. McCullough. eds. The Bible According to MT: Writings of Heaven, Eden, and the Flood. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1995.

Baldanza, Frank. MT: An Introduction and Interpretation. NY, Barnes & Noble 1961. PS1331.B3

Blair, Walter. MT & Huck Finn. Berkeley, U of California P, 1960. PS1305 .B5

Bloom, Harold, ed. MT. NY: Chelsea House P, 1986. Modern Critical Views Series, PS1338 .M27

Budd, Louis J., ed. Critical Essays on MT, 1867-1910. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1982. PS1331 .C75

- - -. ed. Critical Essays on MT, 1910-1980. Boston G.K. Hall, 1983. PS1331 .C76

Camfield, Gregg. Sentimental Twain: Samuel Clemens in the Maze of Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1994.

Canby, Henry Seidel. Turn West, Turn East: MT and Henry James. NY: Biblo and Tannen, 1965. PS1331 .C25

Cox, James M. MT: The Fate of Humor. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1966. PS1331 .C6

Gerber, John C. MT. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988. PS1338 .G47

Fishkin, Shelley F. Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on MT and the American Culture. NY: Oxford UP, 1997. ISBN O-19-510531-l.

---. General Editor. The Oxford MT. 29 Volumes. NY: Oxford UP, 1996. (0-19-511345-4.)

Fulton, Joe B. MT's Ethical Realism: The Aesthetics of Race, Class, and Gender. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1997.

Haupt, Clyde V. HF on Film: Film and Television Adaptations of MT's Novels, 1920-1993. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994. (0-89950-920-7)

Horn, Jason G. MT and William James: Crafting a Free Self. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1996.

Knoper, Randall. MT in the Culture of Performance. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995.

Long, E. Hudson and J.R. LeMaster. The New MT Handbook. NY: Garland Publishing Inc., 1985.

Lynn, Kenneth S. MT and Southwestern Humor. Boston, Little, Brown, 1960. PS1338 .L9

Machlis, Paul. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986.

- - -. Union Catalog of Letters to Clemens. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

MT Letters. Volumes 1-5. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988-1997.

McMahan, Elizabeth. Critical Approaches to MT's Short Stories. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat P, 1981. PS1338 .C7

Michelson, Bruce. MT on the Loose: A Comic Writer and the American Self. Amherst: U of Massachusetts, 1995.

Rasmussen, R. Kent. MT A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Writings. NY: Facts on File, 1995.

Robinson, Forrest G. ed. The Cambridge Companion to MT. NY: Cambridge UP, 1995.

Smith, Henry Nash. MT: The Development of a Writer. Cambridge: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1962. PS1331 .S56

Tenney, Thomas A. MT: A Reference Guide. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1977.

Vallin, Marlene B. MT: Protagonist for the Popular Culture. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood P, 1992. PS1338 .V35

Wilson, James D. A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of MT. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987. PS1338 .W5

Budd, Louis J. "A Listing of and Selections from Newspaper and Magazine Interviews with Samuel L. Clemens, 1874-1910," published as a special issue of American Literary Realism 10:1 (Winter 1977).

- - -. "Listing of and Selections from Newspaper and Magazine Interviews with Samuel L. Clemens: A Supplement." American Literary Realism 28:3 (Spring 1996): 63-90.

Dalrymple, Scott. "Just War, Pure and Simple: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and the American Civil War." American literary realism 29.1 (Fall 1996): 1-12.

Lowry, Richard S. "Littery Man": MT and Modern Authorship. NY: Oxford U, 1996. ISBN 0-19-510212-6.

Rule, Henry B. "The Role of Satan in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.'" Studies in Short Fiction 6 (Fall 1969): 619-629. (Also in cluded in McMahan above)

Selected Bibliography

Arac, Jonathan. Huckleberry Finn as Idol and Target: The Functions of Criticism in Our Time. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1997. (Book Review)

Chadwick-Joshua, Jocelyn. The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn. Jackson: U P of Mississippi, 1998.

Fishkin, Shelley F. Was Huck Black?: MT and African-American Voices. NY: Oxford UP, 1993.

Leonard, James, and others. eds. Satire or Evasion?: Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn. Duke U., 1992.

Lettis, Richard. Huck Finn and His Critics. NY: Macmillan, 1962. PS1305 .L4

Sattelmeyer, Robert. et al eds. One Hundred Years of Huckleberry Finn: The Boy, His Book, and American Culture. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1985. PS1305 .O54

Bier, Jesse. "Bless You Chile: Fiedler and `Huck Honey' a Generation Later." Mississippi Q. 34 4 (Fall 1981): 456-462.

Boone, Joseph. "Male Independence and the American Quest Genre: Hidden Sexual Politics in the All-Male Worlds of Melville, Twain, and London." in Ed. Judith Spector, Gender Studies: New Directions in Feminist Criticism, 1986.

* Cox, James M. "The Uncomfortable Ending of Huckleberry Finn." from MT: The Fate of Humor, 1966.

Dawson, Hugh J. "The Ethnicity of Huck Finn - and the Difference It Makes. " American Literary Realism 30.2 (1998): 1-16.

* Eliot, T. S. "An Introduction to Huckleberry Finn." from "Introduction," The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1950.

Fetterley, Judith. "Disenchantment: Tom Sawyer in Huckleberry Finn." PMLA 87 1 (Jan. 1972): 69-74.

* Fiedler, Leslie. "Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Huck Honey." from The Collected Essays, 1971.

* Hoffman, Daniel G. "Black Magic - and White - in Huckleberry Finn." from Form and Fable in American Fiction, 1961.

Lane, Lauriat, Jr. "Why Huckleberry Finn is a Great World Novel." College English 17 (Oct. 1955): 1-5.

* Lynn, Kenneth S. "You Can't Go Home Again." from MT and Southwestern Humor, 1960. PS1338 .L9

* Marx, Leo. "Mr. Eliot, Mr. Trilling, and Huckleberry Finn." The American Scholar 22 No. 4 (Autumn 1953): 423-40.

Mason, Ernest "Attraction and Repulsion: Huck Finn, `Nigger' Jim, and Black Americans Revisited." College Lang. Association Journal 33 1 (Sep `89): 36-48.

Mauro, Jason I. "Huck Finn and the Post-Nuclear Age: Lighting Out for the New Frontier." Literature and psychology 43.3 (1997): 24-41.

O'Connor, William Van. "Why Huckleberry Finn is not the Great American Novel." College English 17 (Oct. 1955): 6-10.

Schacht, Paul. "The Lonesomeness of Huckleberry Finn." American Literature 53 2 (May 1981): 189-201.

* Smith, Henry Nash. "A Sound Heart and a Deformed Conscience." from MT: The Development of a Writer. 1962. PS1331 .S56

Tenney, Thomas. "Annotated Checklist of Criticism on Adventures of Huck Finn." Huck Finn Among the Critics: A Centennial Selection. Ed. Thomas Inge. University Publications of America, 1985.

* Trilling, Lionel. "The Greatness of Huckleberry Finn.'' from "Introduction," The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1948.

Berger Sidney E. ed. Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins: Authoritative Texts; Textual Introduction and Tables of Variants; Criticism. NY: Norton, 1980.

Berkson, Dorothy. "Mark Twain's Two-Headed Novel: Racial Symbolism and Social Realism in Pudd'nhead Wilson." Studies in American Humor 3.4 (Wint 1984-1985): 309-320.

Fishkin, Shelley F. "Race and Culture at the Century's End: A Social Context for Puddn'head Wilson." Essays in Arts and Sciences 19 (May 1990): 1-27.

Fredricks, Nancy. "Twain's Indelible Twins." Nineteenth Century Literature 43.4 (Mar 1989): 484-99.

Gillman, Susan. Dark Twins: Imposture and Identity in Mark Twain's America. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989.

- - -, and Forrest G. Robinson. eds. Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: Race, Conflict, and Culture. Durham: Duke UP, 1990.

Cowan, Michael. "'By Right of the White Election': Political Theology and Theological Politics in Pudd'nhead Wilson." 155-176.

Cox, James M. "Pudd'nhead Wilson Revisited." 1-21.

Marcus, George E. "'What Did He Rekon Would Become of the Other Half if He Killed His Half?' Doubled, Divided, and Crossed Selves in Pudd'nhead Wilson: Or, Mark Twain as Cultural Critic in His Own Times and Ours." 190-210.

McWilliams, Wilson C. "Pudd'nhead Wilson on Democratic Governance." 177-189.

Porter, Carolyn. "Roxana's Plot." 154-68.

Robinson, Forrest G. "The Sense of Disorder in Pudd'nhead." 22-45.

Rogin, Michael. "Francis Galton and Mark Twain: The Natal Autograph in Pudd'nhead Wilson." 73-85.

Rowe, John C. "Fatal Speculations: Murder, Money, and Manners in Pudd'nhead Wilson." 137-54.

Schaar, John H. "Some of the Ways of Freedom in Pudd'nhead Wilson." 211-27.

Hedges, Warren. "If Uncle Tom Is White, Should We Call Him 'Auntie'? Race and Sexuality in Postbellum U. S. Fiction." Whiteness: A Critical Reader. Ed. Mike Hill. NY: NY UP, 1997. 226-47.

Howe, Lawrence. "Race, Genealogy, and Genre in Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson." Nineteenth Century Literature 46.4 (Mar 1992): 495-516.

Jehlen, Myra. "The Ties that Bind: Race and Sex in Pudd'nhead Wilson." American Literary History 2.1 (Sprg 1990): 39-55.

Kapoor, S. D. "Race and Mark Twain." Making Mark Twain Work in the Classroom. Ed. James S. Leonard. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1999. 40-54.

Mandia, Patricia M. "Children of Fate and Irony in Pudd'nhead Wilson." Language Quarterly 28.3-4 (Sumr-Fall 1990): 29-40.

Moss, Robert. "Tracing Mark Twain's Intentions: The Retreat from Issues of Race in Pudd'nhead Wilson." American Literary Realism 30.2 (Wint 1998): 43-55.

Nielsen, A. L. "Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Novel of the Tragic Mulatto." Greyfriar 26 (1985): 14-30.

Oliphant, A. W. "The Whole Dog: A Study of Multiplicity in Pudd'nhead Wilson." Language and Style 24.2 (Sprg 1991): 145-52.

Porter, Carolyn. "Roxana's Plot." Mark Twain: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Eric J. Sundquist. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994. 154-68.

Rickard, Kenneth. "Blood on the Margins: Reconstructing Race in Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson." Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association 23.2 (Fall 1997): 65-90.

Shell, Marc. "Those Extraordinary Twins." Arizona Quarterly 47.2 (Sumr 1991): 29-75.

Thomas, Brook. "Tragedies of Race, Training, Birth, and Communities of Competent Pudd'nheads." American Literary History 1.4 (Wint 1989): 754-85.

Wonham, Henry B. "Getting to the Bottom of Pudd'nhead Wilson; Or, a Critical Vision Focused (Too Well?) for Irony." Arizona Quarterly 50.3 (Autm 1994): 111-26.

Briden, Earl. "Twainian Pedagogy and the No-Account Lessons of Hadleyburg." Studies in Short Fiction 28.2 (Sprg 1991): 129-134.

Fordyce. "The Moral Obliquity of 'The Man That corrupted Hadleyburg'." Mark Twain Journal Spring 1983 21.3:

Nebeker, Helen. "The Great Corrupter or Satan Rehabilitated." Studies in Short Fiction 6 (1969): 635-637.

Rucker, Mary. "Moralism and Determinism in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg'." Studies in Short Fiction 14 (1977): 49-54.

Rule, Henry. "The Role of Satan in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg'." Studies in Short Fiction 6 (1969): 619-629.

Scharnhorst, Gary. "Paradise Revisited: Twain's 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg'." Studies in Short Fiction (Wint1981): 59-64.

Scherting, Jack. "Poe's The Cask of Amontillado': Twain's 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg'." Journal 16.2 (1972): 18-19.

Tabai, Koji. "Irony in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg'." American Literature 29 (1988): 67-69.

Werge, Thomas. "The Sin of Hypocrisy in 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg' and Inferno XXIIL." Mark Twain Journal 18.1 (1976): 17-18.

Mark Twain - A Brief Assessment

One of the great writers of American literature, Twain is admired for capturing typical American experiences in a language which is realistic and charming. Howells was one of Twain's early admirers, and he wrote the following on Twain's style: "So far as I know, Mr. Clemens is the first writer to use in extended writing the fashion we all use in thinking, and to set down the thing that comes into his mind without fear or favor of the thing that went before or the thing that may be about to follow." Most of the critical attention has been given to Huck Finn, Clemens' greatest achievement. This book concerns itself with a number of themes, among them the quest for freedom, the transition from adolescence into adulthood, alienation and initiation, criticism of pre-Civil War southern life. A remarkable achievement of the book is Clemens' use of American humor, folklore, slang, and dialects. There is critical debate, however, concerning the ending of the book - some call it weak and ineffective, others feel it is appropriate and effective.

| Top | Study Questions

1. Many readers of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn consider the ending flawed&emdash;Hemingway, for example, said that Twain "cheated"&emdash;while others have praised it. Write an essay in which you either defend or criticize the novel's ending, focusing on Huck's treatment of Jim.

2. The theme of pretending is one that unifies Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, although the word pretending takes on several different meanings and levels of significance as the novel unfolds. Describe three of these, and illustrate each by analyzing a specific character, scene, or incident from the novel.

3. If one were constructing a list of "classic" American books, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would almost certainly appear on the list. Explore in detail why this is the case. In what ways does Clemens take American experience as his subject? What are the elements of Clemens's language and form that readers might consider particularly "American"?

4. Explore the relationship between the symbolism of the river and Clemens's narrative design or structure in the novel.

5. Analyze Clemens's portrait of Jim in light of your reading of Frederick Douglass. Is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a slave narrative, or does Clemens use the discussion of slavery as a pretext to write about some other issue?

6. Consider Huckleberry Finn as an abused child. Explore the novel as a reflection of late-nineteenth-century attitudes toward child rearing.

7. Analyze Clemens's use of humor, focusing on "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" or "Letter IV" and one incident from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

8. Analyze Huck Finn's language in the opening passages of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Identify specific features of his syntax and discuss how Clemens uses Huck's style as a way to construct his character.

9. Analyze evidence of dialect in Huck Finn's speech and compare it with dialects spoken by several other characters in the novel. Compare Clemens's depiction of dialect in general with that of Bret Harte, Joel Chandler Harris, or Sarah Orne Jewett.

10. Identify and discuss features of the picaresque novel that Clemens uses in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

11. Analyze Clemens's portrait of Tom Sawyer. Is he model, rival, alter ego, or mirror for Huck? Does he develop in the novel?

12. Analyze Clemens's portrait of Jim. Does he have an independent existence in the novel or does he merely reflect the way others see him? Compare his portrait with portraits of black characters in the Joel Chandler Harris tales or in Charles Chesnutt's The Goophered Grapevine.

13. Study the female characters in the novel. What stereotypes does Clemens use? Do any of his female characters transcend stereotype?

14. Death is a frequent motif in the novel. Comment on its various thematic and symbolic uses, and analyze in particular Huck's symbolic death in Chapter VI.

15. Write an essay on elements of theater in Clemens's work commenting on the relationship between the art and act of oral storytelling and the narrative form Clemens devises for written stories.

16. What is the role of Tom Sawyer in Huckleberry Finn? If you have read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, what is the difference between Tom in the earlier book and in Huckleberry Finn?

17. What aspects of Huckleberry Finn are as vital today as they were one hundred years ago? What in the book helps you understand an earlier era in American history, different from our own?

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 5: Late Nineteenth Century - Mark Twain." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/twain.html (provide page date or date of your login).  

| Top | Back | Chap 5 | Alphabetical List | Contents | PAL Home | Literature | Home |