Mark Twain's Notebooks


Book Description

The original and insightful collection that combines Mark Twain's journal writings with his rarely seen sketches and doodles. Fascinating and often hilarious, this is a complete record of the thoughts, ideas, and observations of the father of American literature. A national treasure and a cultural and literary icon, Mark Twain was called "the father of American literature" by William Faulkner. His beloved works include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and 26 other books. His inimitable prose seamlessly weaves together humor, insight, vivid details, and memorable characters. Along with these published works, Twain, who was also a journalist, produced approximately 40 to 50 pocket notebooks and wrote countless letters, essays, travelogues, and lectures in his lifetime. Mark Twain's Notebooks is the first collection to gather these writings and combine them with dozens of Twain's rarely seen sketches, doodles, and diagrams, as well as facsimiles of his original journal pages, letters, and essays. The result is page after beautifully designed page of some of the best, yet little-known, writings of Mark Twain. Organized by topics such as science, literature, health, family life, and food, the collection also includes intimate letters that describe the home he built in Hartford, Connecticut; his travels across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States; and his agony over the death of his favorite daughter. The writing and art is selected by book and publishing veteran Carlo De Vito, who provides fascinating commentary and insights into the material throughout the book.




Mark Twain’s Book of Animals


Book Description

"For those unaware—as I was until I read this book—that Mark Twain was one of America's early animal advocates, Shelley Fisher Fishkin's collection of his writings on animals will come as a revelation. Many of these pieces are as fresh and lively as when they were first written, and it's wonderful to have them gathered in one place." —Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation and The Life You Can Save “A truly exhilarating work. Mark Twain's animal-friendly views would not be out of place today, and indeed, in certain respects, Twain is still ahead of us: claiming, correctly, that there are certain degraded practices that only humans inflict on one another and upon other animals. Fishkin has done a splendid job: I cannot remember reading something so consistently excellent."—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and The Face on Your Plate "Shelley Fisher Fishkin has given us the lifelong arc of the great man's antic, hilarious, and subtly profound explorations of the animal world, and she's guided us through it with her own trademark wit and acumen. Dogged if she hasn't." —Ron Powers, author of Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain and Mark Twain: A Life




Potsdam, NY


Book Description

Red sandstone, lumber, paper, cows, and college students feature prominently in Potsdam. With its selection of two hundred stunning photographs, the book records aspects of life in Potsdam from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. Located on the Racquette River between the St. Lawrence River and the Adirondack Mountains, the town is one often that were created in 1787 to promote settlement of New York State. Education has played an important role in Potsdam since 1816, when St. Lawrence Academy opened. The success of the academy led to the establishment in 1866 of a normal school, the forerunner of Potsdam College, with its renowned Crane School of Music.




The Mark Twain Encyclopedia


Book Description

A reference guide to the great American author (1835-1910) for students and general readers. The approximately 740 entries, arranged alphabetically, are essentially a collection of articles, ranging significantly in length and covering a variety of topics pertaining to Twain's life, intellectual milieu, literary career, and achievements. Because so much of Twain's writing reflects Samuel Clemens's personal experience, particular attention is given to the interface between art and life, i.e., between imaginative reconstructions and their factual sources of inspiration. Each entry is accompanied by a selective bibliography to guide readers to sources of additional information. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Mark Twain's Notebooks & Journals, Volume III


Book Description

Volume III of Mark Twain's notebooks spans the years 1883 to 1891, a period during which Mark Twain's personal fortunes reached their zenith, as he emerged as one of the most successful authors and publishers in American literary history. During these years Life on the Mississippi, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court appeared, revealing the diversity, depth, and vitality of Mark Twain's literary talents. With his speeches, his public performances, and his lecture tour of 1884/1885, he became the most recognizable of national figures. At the same time, Mark Twain's growing fame and prosperity allowed him to plunge deeply into the business world, a sphere not suited to his erratic energies. He created the subscription publish firm of Charles L. Webster & Company, Which published the most profitable book of its time, the Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. And he became the primary financial support for the ingenious but imperfectible Paige typesetter. Within a few years both the publishing company and the typesetter had taxed Mark Twain's patience, and pocket, beyond endurance. The near bankruptcy of the publishing firm and the debacle of the typesetter scheme finally resulted in 1891 in a drastic decision--to leave the house in Hartford, Connecticut, which had long been the symbol of Mark Twain's rising fortunes and idyllic family life, and move to Europe for an indefinite period in the hope of reducing the family's living expenses. The Clemens family would never return to the Hartford house, and the European stay would lengthen into an almost unbroken nine years of exile. Mark Twain's notebooks permit an intimate view of this turbulent period, whose triumphs were tempered by intimations of financial disaster and personal bitterness.




Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3


Book Description

The surprising final chapter of a great American life. When the first volume of Mark Twain’s uncensored Autobiography was published in 2010, it was hailed as an essential addition to the shelf of his works and a crucial document for our understanding of the great humorist’s life and times. This third and final volume crowns and completes his life’s work. Like its companion volumes, it chronicles Twain's inner and outer life through a series of daily dictations that go wherever his fancy leads. Created from March 1907 to December 1909, these dictations present Mark Twain at the end of his life: receiving an honorary degree from Oxford University; railing against Theodore Roosevelt; founding numerous clubs; incredulous at an exhibition of the Holy Grail; credulous about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays; relaxing in Bermuda; observing (and investing in) new technologies. The Autobiography’s "Closing Words" movingly commemorate his daughter Jean, who died on Christmas Eve 1909. Also included in this volume is the previously unpublished "Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript," Mark Twain’s caustic indictment of his "putrescent pair" of secretaries and the havoc that erupted in his house during their residency. Fitfully published in fragments at intervals throughout the twentieth century, Autobiography of Mark Twain has now been critically reconstructed and made available as it was intended to be read. Fully annotated by the editors of the Mark Twain Project, the complete Autobiography emerges as a landmark publication in American literature. Editors: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith Associate Editors: Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Amanda Gagel, Sharon K. Goetz, Leslie Diane Myrick, Christopher M. Ohge




The Routledge Encyclopedia of Mark Twain


Book Description

"A model reference work that can be used with profit and delight by general readers as well as by more advanced students of Twain. Highly recommended." - Library Journal The Routledge Encyclopedia of Mark Twain includes more than 700 alphabetically arranged entries that cover a full variety of topics on this major American writer's life, intellectual milieu, literary career, and achievements. Because so much of Twain's travel narratives, essays, letters, sketches, autobiography, journalism and fiction reflect his personal experience, particular attention is given to the delicate relationship between art and life, between artistic interpretations and their factual source. This comprehensive resource includes information on: Twain’s life and times: the author's childhood in Missouri and apprenticeship as a riverboat pilot, early career as a journalist in the West, world travels, friendships with well-known figures, reading and education, family life and career Complete Works: including novels, travel narratives, short stories, sketches, burlesques, and essays Significant characters, places, and landmarks Recurring concerns, themes or concepts: such as humor, language; race, war, religion, politics, imperialism, art and science Twain’s sources and influences. Useful for students, researchers, librarians and teachers, this volume features a chronology, a special appendix section tracking the poet's genealogy, and a thorough index. Each entry also includes a bibliography for further study.







Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 3


Book Description

"Don't scold me, Livy—let me pay my due homage to your worth; let me honor you above all women; let me love you with a love that knows no doubt, no question—for you are my world, my life, my pride, my all of earth that is worth the having." These are the words of Samuel Clemens in love. Playful and reverential, jubilant and despondent, they are filled with tributes to his fiancée Olivia Langdon and with promises faithfully kept during a thirty-four-year marriage. The 188 superbly edited letters gathered here show Samuel Clemens having few idle moments in 1869. When he was not relentlessly "banged about from town to town" on the lecture circuit or busily revising The Innocents Abroad, the book that would make his reputation, he was writing impassioned letters to Olivia. These letters, the longest he ever wrote, make up the bulk of his correspondence for the year and are filled with his acute wit and dazzling language. This latest volume of Mark Twain's Letters captures Clemens on the verge of becoming the celebrity and family man he craved to be. This volume has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and by a major donation to the Friends of The Bancroft Library from the Pareto Fund.