A Companion to Mark Twain

This broad-ranging companion brings together respected American and European critics and a number of up-and-coming scholars to provide an overview of Twain, his background, his writings, and his place in American literary history. One of the most broad-ranging volumes to appear on Mark Twain in recent years. Brings together respected Twain critics and a number of younger scholars in the field to provide an overview of this central figure in American literature. Places special emphasis on the ways in which Twain's works remain both relevant and important for a twenty-first century audience. A concluding essay evaluates the changing landscape of Twain criticism.

Peter Messent is Professor of Modern American Literature at Nottingham University. He is the author of The Short Works of Mark Twain: A Critical Study (2001), Mark Twain (1997), Ernest Hemingway (1992), and New Readings of the American Novel: Narrative Theory and its Application (1990), and editor of Criminal Proceedings: The Contemporary American Crime Novel (1997).

Louis J. Budd is James B. Duke Professor (Emeritus) of American Literature at Duke University, where he taught American Literature from 1981 to 1991. He is the author of Mark Twain: Social Philosopher (reissued 2001) and Our Mark Twain: The Making of his Public Personality (1983) and the editor of Mark Twain: The Contemporary Reviews (1999). He served as founding president of the Mark Twain Circle of America.

Notes on Contributors

x

Note on Referencing

xvii

Acknowledgments

xix

PART I The Cultural Context

1

(122)

Mark Twain and Nation

3

(18)

Randall Knoper

Mark Twain and Human Nature

21

(17)

Tom Quirk

Mark Twain and America's Christian Mission Abroad

38

(15)

Susan K. Harris

Mark Twain and Whiteness

53

(13)

Richard S. Lowry

Mark Twain and Gender

66

(12)

Peter Stoneley

Twain and Modernity

78

(16)

T.J. Lustig

Mark Twain and Politics

94

(15)

James S. Leonard

``The State, it is I'': Mark Twain, Imperialism, and the New Americanists

109

(14)

Scott Michaelsen

PART II Mark Twain and Others

123

(86)

Twain, Language, and the Southern Humorists

125

(16)

Gavin Jones

The ``American Dickens'': Mark Twain and Charles Dickens

141

(16)

Christopher Gair

Nevada Influences on Mark Twain

157

(15)

Lawrence I. Berkove

The Twain--Cable Combination

172

(14)

Stephen Railton

Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Realism

186

(23)

Peter Messent

PART III Mark Twain: Publishing and Performing

209

(82)

``I don't know A from B'': Mark Twain and Orality

211

(17)

Thomas D. Zlatic

Mark Twain and the Profession of Writing

228

(15)

Leland Krauth

Mark Twain and the Promise and Problems of Magazines

243

(16)

Martin T. Buinicki

Mark Twain and the Stage

259

(15)

Shelley Fisher Fishkin

Mark Twain on the Screen

274

(17)

R. Kent Rasmussen

Mark Dawidziak

PART IV Mark Twain and Travel

291

(64)

Twain and the Mississippi

293

(16)

Andrew Dix

Mark Twain and the Literary Construction of the American West

309

(15)

Gary Scharnhorst

Mark Twain and Continental Europe

324

(14)

Holger Kersten

Mark Twain and Travel Writing

338

(17)

Jeffrey Alan Melton

PART V Mark Twain's Fiction

355

(112)

Mark Twain's Short Fiction

357

(14)

Henry B. Wonham

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Prince and the Pauper as Juvenile Literature

371

(16)

Linda A. Morris

Plotting and Narrating ``Huck''

387

(14)

Victor Doyno

Going to Tom's Hell in Huckleberry Finn

401

(15)

Hilton Obenzinger

History, ``Civilization,'' and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

416

(15)

Sam Halliday

Mark Twain's Dialects

431

(10)

David Lionel Smith

Killing Half A Dog, Half A Novel: The Trouble With The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and The Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins

441

(8)

John Bird

Dreaming Better Dreams: The Late Writing of Mark Twain

449

(18)

Forrest G. Robinson

PART VI Mark Twain's Humor

467

(64)

Mark Twain's Visual Humor

469

(16)

Louis J. Budd

Mark Twain and Post-Civil War Humor

485

(15)

Cameron C. Nickels

Mark Twain and Amiable Humor

500

(13)

Gregg Camfield

Mark Twain and the Enigmas of Wit

513

(18)

Bruce Michelson

PART VII A Retrospective

531

(24)

The State of Mark Twain Studies

533

(22)

Alan Gribben

Index

555

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A Companion to Mark Twain

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials