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Mark Twain

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Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Paperback – January 19, 2012

by Mark Twain (Author)

4.5 332 ratings

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This is Twain’s recounting of the life of Joan of Arc, a historical figure with whom the author was deeply fascinated. While Twain’s take on the martyr has been dismissed by some critics as heavily romanticized, he considered it to be his finest work. The last of his novels to be completed, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc is an excellent read for anyone hoping to experience Twain at the height of his maturity.

Print length

260 pages
Language

English
Publication date

January 19, 2012
Dimensions

6 x 0.59 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1619492792
ISBN-13

978-1619492790
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Editorial Reviews

Review

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

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, Mark Twain: Jackleg Novelist

About the Author

America's most famous storyteller, Mark Twain, was obsessed with the story of Joan of Arc, and labored 12 years to tell it in this novel, which he considered his masterpiece.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Empire Books (January 19, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 260 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1619492792
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1619492790
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.59 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,957,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #57,390 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #139,601 in Action & Adventure Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 332 ratings

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Mark Twain

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Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910). He was born and brought up in the American state of Missouri and, because of his father's death, he left school to earn his living when he was only twelve. He was a great adventurer and travelled round America as a printer; prospected for gold and set off for South America to earn his fortune. He returned to become a steam-boat pilot on the Mississippi River, close to where he had grown up. The Civil War put an end to steam-boating and Clemens briefly joined the Confederate army - although the rest of his family were Unionists! He had already tried his hand at newspaper reporting and now became a successful journalist. He started to use the alias Mark Twain during the Civil War and it was under this pen name that he became a famous travel writer. He took the name from his steam-boat days - it was the river pilots' cry to let their men know that the water was two fathoms deep.

Mark Twain was always nostalgic about his childhood and in 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published, based on his own experiences. The book was soon recognised as a work of genius and eight years later the sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was published. The great writer Ernest Hemingway claimed that 'All modern literature stems from this one book.'

Mark Twain was soon famous all over the world. He made a fortune from writing and lost it on a typesetter he invented. He then made another fortune and lost it on a bad investment. He was an impulsive, hot-tempered man but was also quite sentimental and superstitious. He was born when Halley's Comet was passing the Earth and always believed he would die when it returned - this is exactly what happened.

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332 global ratings

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LightOwl

The best resource on Joan of Arc

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2023

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Forget the bad Hollywood movies and other distorted stories about Joan of Arc. If you want a well researched and well written book about St Joan of Arc, read this.

One person found this helpful

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Max's master

15th century show trial

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2014

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I read biographies of Joan of Arc before and what drew me to read Twain's book was my surprise at learning that he had written on such a subject. For the author of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and A Tramp Abroad, the life of a saint seemed an unlikely subject. I'm very glad I decided to read it.

The first thing to bear in mind in reading this book is that the way in which people viewed life and the world in the 15th century was utterly different from ours. The description of Joan's early life in Domremy may seem to us to describe a naïve and backward, even childish world. But Twain is underlining the extraordinary fact that the 17-year-old girl who, at the age of 17 was placed at the head of the army of France, was just a simple villager with no knowledge of the world of warfare or international politics. We may wonder at the effect which her appointment had on subsequent events and smile smugly at what we see as the gullibility of both the French and English who attributed such amazing powers to her. Whatever the explanation for that effect, whether one believes, as the French did, that her powers came from God or, as the English did, that they came from the Devil, she had a profound and determinant effect on the events of her time and on subsequent history.

Abandoned by the very king whose throne she had secured, she was wounded and captured by the English, imprisoned and put on trial for heresy and witchcraft. It is at this point that the book becomes rivetingly interesting. Reading the account of her trial I was reminded again and again of the Soviet show trials under Stalin. In these the accused were bullied, tortured, immured in 'psychiatric hospitals' and all-in-all subjected to every sort of physical and psychological abuse until they confessed to their 'crimes'. So it was with Joan. In her case she realised what had been done to her and disowned her 'confession' before her execution by burning at the stake. The sentence was, in any case, a foregone conclusion as the English were determined that this girl who had so invigorated their French foes should die.

Twenty-five years later a commission of investigation was established. It took evidence from all those who had known Joan from the time of her birth in Domremy to her death, from neighbours, soldiers, clergy, lords and commoners. They sifted through the evidence from her trial. The result was a complete vindication of Joan and a condemnation of her trial as unjust and unfair.

However we regard her, Joan of Arc is unique as the only 17-year-old girl ever to be placed at the head of a national army. Because she was tried and afterwards 're-tried' by the commission, and because the contemporary records of those processes have been preserved, we know perhaps more of the facts of Joan's life than we do of any other person from her age and the account of her trial is taken from the court records which give it an authority and immediacy not found in most historical biographies from long ago.

9 people found this helpful

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Madeleine R. Myers

Mark Twain's biography of St. Joan

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2018

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For Christians, the saints are extraordinary role models. Whatever one's interests or occupation, there's a saint for that. Joan of Arc, obviously, is there for soldiers and patriots, but she also serves even in our time as an example of perfect obedience and humility and deference to authority, as well as a paragon of courage and conviction. Mark Twain, writing on a subject unlike his other more typical books like Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, does not display the wit and liveliness of those works, but the character of Joan shines like a precious gem in the darkness of war, violence, death, and betrayal.

I found the greater part of the book, which follows Joan and her soldier-narrator through the various battles in the Hundred Years War, sometimes tedious and repetitive, despite flashes of Twain's trademark humor in the interactions between the soldiers under Joan's command. But what was there was a realistic, no doubt familiar even to modern veterans, rapport between men in combat.

The last chapters, focused on Joan's captivity and ultimate martyrdom, where the narrator follows her, acting as scribe through her trial rather than soldier, are harrowing; although between his description of her grim environment in prison and the cruel machinations of her inquisitors the narrator passionately reveals the Joan whose courage and fierce honesty wins over a generally hostile crowd of spectators, planting hints of how her humiliation and cruel death ultimately leads to her vindication, beatification, and the crown of sainthood.

Twain apparently considered this his favorite, if not his best, work.

2 people found this helpful

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saintsomewhere

"Hold the cross high, that I may see it through the flames!"

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2013

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I love Joan of Arc stories, and I think this is the best.
I stumbled on this at a Big Box Book Store, while holiday shopping, having no idea Mark Twain ever wrote a Joan of Arc book. The paperback was nearly $18 there, so I bought the Kindle edition, which was perfect, and much more affordable.

Mark Twain considered this his most important work, according to various sources. That alone compelled me to read this book- I was thoroughly intrigued with the idea that an atheist/agnostic like Twain would have such an interest in a historical figure whose life was so brief, and so bound in her Christian faith. It becomes clear in his telling, Joan's is not a mere religious story- She was entirely unique, a hero-figure, a warrior, a rebel and basically a child, a girl possessed of an elaborate sense of mission. How could he, or any of us, resist?
The story is magic, and Twain tells it well, in first person narrative from the vantage point of the friend and scribe that accompanied Joan from her youth in Domremy to her torture and fiery death in Rouen. The characters come alive from their period clothing and tools of war, to their too human souls, in rich color, and it matters not that you know how it ends. Twain creates unmatched suspense and empathy.
It was among those few books I never want to end. Touching, entertaining, and incredibly inspiring.

11 people found this helpful

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Dora Haven

Joan's martyrdom and Twain's masterpiece

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2016

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I did not know much about the life of Joan of Arc before reading this book. Now I feel that I walked by her as did the scribe who Twain masterfully uses as a literary device to retell the life and martyrdom of the Maid of Orleans. It was painful to read the last pages. Tears welled in my eyes then as they do now, having just finished the book. As I read of the final treachery suffered by Joan through her persecutors and the horror of her death, I kept having to stop and wipe my eyes to finish the last paragraphs.
Only Mark Twain could conjure such feelings with prose about a girl who became the general of generals over 600 years ago. His writing is crisp and pleasant to read, his dialogue flows easily, and his storytelling is flawless. This book is due a renaissance and Twain a posthumous Pulitzer.

4 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Vivienne Chambers

Small text

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2020

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Looking forward to reading.

Tammy Mohun

Let's pretend this wonderful writer never wrote it and that it is a ...

Reviewed in Canada on May 24, 2016

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Outdated. Nobody now knows there was a XVth century anywhere, but here the author plods through a unrewarding "I made it all up" contemporary narrative. Let's pretend this wonderful writer never wrote it and that it is a forgery concocted by one of his lesser competitors.

john wetherell

GOOD

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2017

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EXTREMELY INTERESTING

One person found this helpful