The first documented meeting between Mark Twain and William James took place while both vacationed with their families in Florence, Italy, in 1892. "I have seen him a couple of times," James wrote home to Josiah Royce, "a fine, soft, fibred little fellow with the perversest twang and drawl, but very human and good. One might grow very fond of him," he confessed, "and wish he'd come and live in Cambridge." In Mark Twain and William James, Jason Gary Horn offers the first thorough investigation of the relationship between Mark Twain and William James, emphasizing Twain's friendship with James beyond their shared intellectual interests. James, in fact, provides the cultural mirror most capable of reflecting Twain's own shifting thought and illuminating his often vaguely defined philosophical observations.
Focusing on the experience of freedom embodied in three Twain texts, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, and No. 44, the Mysterious Stranger, this book encapsulates both Twain's early and late theoretical speculations on the nature of the divided self. From the thoughts and actions of the protagonists in these works, we can trace and follow Twain's fictive map of mind, one that eventually leads to a new vision of personal freedom. Horn moves gracefully and effectively between James and Twain, expounding the virtues of the mind and temperament of James against which we can best observe Twain's mind and philosophical temperament. Providing a fresh estimate of Mark Twain's later years, Mark Twain and William James constitutes a significant revision in our way of viewing one of America's important, endearing, and yet intellectually undersung writers.
