Joan of Arc [Paperback]

Mark Twain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1989 | Series: Her Page and Secretary

Very few people know that Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) wrote a major work on Joan of Arc. Still fewer know that he considered it not only his most important but also his best work. He spent twelve years in research and many months in France doing archival work and then made several attempts until he felt he finally had the story he wanted to tell. He reached his conclusion about Joan's unique place in history only after studying in detail accounts written by both sides, the French and the English.

Because of Mark Twain's antipathy to institutional religion, one might expect an anti-Catholic bias toward Joan or at least toward the bishops and theologians who condemned her. Instead one finds a remarkably accurate biography of the life and mission of Joan of Arc told by one of this country's greatest storytellers. The very fact that Mark Twain wrote this book and wrote it the way he did is a powerful testimony to the attractive power of the Catholic Church's saints. This is a book that really will inform and inspire.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Joan of Arc is the lone example that history affords of an actual, real embodiment of all the virtues demonstrated by Huck and Jim and of all that Twain felt to be noble in man, Joan is the ideal toward which mankind strives. Twain had to tell her story because she is the sole concrete argument against the pessimistic doctrines of his deterministic philosophy. ---Robert Wiggins, Author, Mark Twain: Jackleg Novelist

"I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others needed no preparation and got none." ----Mark Twain

Mark Twain comes furtively like Nicodemus at night with this tribute to one of God's saints. In doing so he tells a secret about himself. It is as though the man in a white suit and a cloud of cigar smoke thought there just might be a place where people in white robes stand in clouds of incense. ----Fr. George Rutler, Author, The Cure d'Ars Today

From the Publisher

14 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 455 pages
• Publisher: Ignatius Press; First Thus edition (September 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898702682
• ISBN-13: 978-0898702682
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.1 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #556,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American humorist, satirist, social critic, lecturer and novelist. He is mostly remembered for his classic novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

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#12 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

#43 in Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs

#44 in Books > History

#46 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#56 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs

#12 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

#43 in Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs

#44 in Books > History

#46 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#56 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

136 of 138 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The inspiring and poignant tale of a lasting heroine. February 19, 1999

By Margaret Fiore

Format:Paperback

I read Twain's Joan of Arc simply because it was included in a collection with 2 of my perennial favorites: The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I loved Joan of Arc also. But it is a very different cup of tea.

Nowhere else does Mark Twain rein in his irreverent spirit as in this work! He allows his sense of humor to emerge only in the stories of Joan's peripheral friends and fellow villagers (the Paladin, most notably, and even the narrator in the story of the love poem.) The sense of the author's genuine respect and admiration for his amazing heroine permeates the book.

The story of Joan of Arc, always a moving tale, takes on greater weight when a man like Mark Twain - a worldly, cultured, highly intelligent, and totally irreverent man - not only gives 12 years of grueling research to it, but then produces a book that is so unequivocally respectful and devoted.

Such a picture he draws! THIS is a character to excite anyone's admiration, and to inspire us all to give our best selves. And throughout the tale, while one recognizes that it is indeed a "story", it rings convincingly true. No matter what construction a religious or non-religious reader may put on the happenings of Joan of Arc's story, it is still a story of an enduringly noble character and amazing intellect. A woman who stood - and still stands - above the remainder of her species.

This is an inspiring and uplifting piece of work.

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Gem February 23, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

My twelve year old daughter and I read this book aloud as a supplement to our studies of the Middle Ages. Before we began I thought the 452 pages would be a bit daunting but by the time we finished we wished the book was longer. This was an incredible story told by a wonderful storyteller. The characters became more than just names in a history book. We now have an in-depth understanding of the time period, the politics, and the corruption of the Church. This book by Mark Twain, which took him two years to write and involved twelve years of research, is written in the voice of Joan's page and secretary, the Sieur Louis de Conte. De Conte knew Joan as a child and was the one person who was with her through everything up until the fatal end. The book is divided into three sections. The first section details Joan's life as a village peasant when her Voices came to her directing her to take up her mission to rid France of the English, and crown Charles VII the king. In the second section, Joan's military campaign is described and explored. Militarily speaking, it was a triumph. After all, she was the only person in all of history to hold the supreme command of a nation's armies at the age of seventeen. And she was a girl for goodnes sake! It was unheard of at the time and would still be remarkable today. The third section deals with Joan's trial for witchcraft where her strength of character is especially evident. To the end, she claimed her Voices came from God not from Satan as charged. She was unwavering on this point up until she was burned at the stake. Her trial was a sham designed to further the interests of the infamous French bishop, Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais. She died a martyr's death while her beloved France and her King looked on doing nothing to save her. This book was particularly impacting for my daughter as it dealt with a young girl who was remarkable for her character, her religious devotion and her strength. It was a special experience to share it together as a read aloud and I would recommend it highly to anyone looking to further their understanding of a remarkable young girl who changed the course of history.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Joan of Arc Too Often Overlooked May 11, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

The publication of The Oxford Mark Twain edition of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc is significant, primarily in that it makes available to a wide audience a book that has been unjustly relegated to the rosters of religious specialty publishers, thereby denying it the widespread popularity it so richly deserves. The edition also includes two very insightful essays on the book: an Introduction by Justin Kaplan and an Afterword by Susan K. Harris. However, both of these essays make the mistake that most critics have made over the years--they ignore the fact that the book is an enormously entertaining read!

Mr. Kaplan's Introduction starts off with the bald statement that had the book "been the work of another popular writer of its day ... it would not command attention a century later." A curious way to start an introduction for a book which the publisher presumably wishes to sell. Ms. Harris, on the other hand, makes some excellent points supporting her thesis that the novel is "a document of fin-de-siécle loss and alienation," but, like Mr. Kaplan, is relentlessly dismissive of the work's quality as a whole. Both authors seem to resent the fact that Mark Twain's chronicle is not a funny book, nor does it fit easily into the pigeonhole of Twain as American literary icon. Interestingly enough, it is Mr. Kaplan who cites Susy Clemens' opinion on her father's career: "He should show himself to be the great writer that he is, not merely a funny man! Funny! That's all the people see in him--a maker of funny speeches!" A hundred years after her statement, Kaplan and Harris are quick to bear out its unfortunate truth.

Joan of Arc may not be a particularly good example of social criticism--as a matter of fact, any criticism of nineteenth century society it contains are heavily veiled by its medieval setting--but it is a scathing indictment of human treachery and deceit, elements that are prevalent in all societies and throughout all eras. And it is a wonderful story! It is Twain at his most unapologetically sentimental, and few writers, if any, were ever capable of achieving that state without descending into the maudlin. The book is not a biography, although it does draw from the actual transcripts of Joan's trial. And it certainly wouldn't pass muster by today's standard of "biography as pathology."*

However, both Kaplan and Harris are on the mark in stating that this book is atypical of Mark Twain. Despite his well-known agnosticism, he writes in an adulatory way about a woman who, 24 years after the publication of this book, was canonized by the Catholic church. Despite his financial problems of the time (leading to bankruptcy), he wrote a book that was a major departure from the style that had made him a success. Despite his virtual hatred of the French, he undertook a loving portrait of their most-cherished national hero.

Twain spent 12 years researching this book, and two more in the writing of it. It was time well spent, and the rewards for the reader are enormous. The author knew that. "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books," said Mark Twain in 1908. "It is the best; I know it perfectly well."

*A term borrowed from Jan Swafford's recent book on Charles Ives (whose connection to Mark Twain is that Ives' father-in-law was Mark Twain's neighbor in Hartford).