Mark Twain, A Literary Life [Hardcover]

Everett Emerson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 24, 1999

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2000

"Mark Twain endures. Readers sense his humanity, enjoy his humor, and appreciate his insights into human nature, even into such painful experiences as embarrassment and humiliation. No matter how remarkable the life of Samuel Clemens was, what matters most is the relationship of Mark Twain the writer and his writings. That is the subject of this book."—from the Preface

In Mark Twain, A Literary Life, Everett Emerson revisits one of America's greatest and most popular writers to explore the relationship between the life of the writer and his writings. The assumption throughout is that to see Mark Twain's writings in focus, one must give proper attention to their biographical context.

Mark Twain's literary career is fascinating in its strangeness. How could this genius have had so little sense of what he should next do? As a young man, Samuel Clemens's first vocation, that of journeyman printer, took him far from home to the sights of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, while his next vocation would give him the identity by which we most frequently know him. His choice of "Mark Twain" as a pen name cemented his bond with the river, as did such books as Life on the Mississippi and Huckleberry Finn. Then following an unsuccessful try at silver mining, Clemens worked as a newspaperman, humorist, lecturer, but also cultivated an interest in playwriting, politics, and philosophizing.

In reporting the author's life, Emerson has endeavored to permit Mark Twain to tell his own story as much as possible, through the use of letters and autobiographical writings, some unpublished. These fascinating glimpses into the life of the writer will be of interest to all who have an abiding affection for Samuel Clemens and his extraordinary legacy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A bland but busy chronological account of Sam Clemens's writing career as "Mark Twain," Emerson's meticulous run-through of the ups and downsAmostly downsAof the humorist's professional life supplements his earlier The Authentic Mark Twain (1984). Hardly any piece of writing, major or minor, published or unpublished, is ignored, revealing a writer of self-defeating contradictions. While Clemens lusted for fame, he was quite willing to settle for fortuneAoften just money enough to maintain the posh lifestyle he first acquired by marrying the puritanical Olivia Langdon and by his first successes as "Mark Twain." Bad investments, misplaced loyalties and a chronic inability to finish much of what he began forced Clemens to wield his "pot-boiler pen." As an author of books mostly sold (in the U.S.) by subscription, he sometimes had to pad his works and to submit to censorship (often wifely) of his strongest vein, irreverence. Few of his full-length fictions stand up artistically, according to the author. Many are amiably empty of the brash literary personality he had created that liberated his genius. Emerson sees the often-fragmentary and repetitious writings of the last decades as created out of Clemens's personal shame at his sense of artistic waste and his bitterness at the hypocrisies of the bourgeois public that sustained him. The folksy, vernacular humor that had made Clemens famous had turned sardonic and even black. Although largely devoid of the biographical detail that fleshes out a life, Emerson's graphic record of the failed artist who created perhaps the greatest novel written in America, Huckleberry Finn, will be a standard resource. Illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Driven by none of the psychological theories that since Van Wyck Brook's The Ordeal of Mark Twain (1976) have sprung up to explain Sam Clemens's complex personality, this newest biography is based simply and sanely on the assumption "that one can understand virtually all of Mark Twain's works better if one can read them in their biographical context." With a spectacular, but not showy, familiarity with the entire range of Twain's works, Emerson (emeritus, English, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) portrays a man who, in mid-life, had trouble reconciling his rough-and-tumble, Western persona with a proper Eastern lifestyle. Emerson argues convincingly that Twain spent too much time trying both to write sequels to his most lucrative works and to establish himself as a dramatist and let himself be distracted by his social life and star-crossed business ventures. This welcome addition to the long shelf of Twainiana (the last wrap-up chapter is itself worth the price of admission) is recommended for all libraries.ACharles Crawford Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press (November 24, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812235169
• ISBN-13: 978-0812235166
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,678,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An fascinating biographical and literary survey., March 3, 2000

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark Twain, A Literary Life (Hardcover)

Mark Twain: A Literary Life builds upon earlier writings, exploring the relationships between Twain's life and his literary output. Biographical and literary background probes blend in an excellent survey which draws important links between the events in Twain's life and his literary productivity.