Mark Twain

1835 - 1910

Already famous for writing Tom Sawyer and other books and stories, in 1885, Mark Twain (always Sam Clemens to his family, friends, and associates) became America's #1 novelist. And the most notorious. That's when Huckleberry Finn first appeared in America. Humorous at one level, but dead serious at another, there were passages that mothers wouldn't have thought of reading to their children. That's true then, and it's true now - but they're not the same passages. Even today Huck has been banned from some schools and for all practical purposes remains an adult book.

That said, Huck is usually cited as the real beginning of American letters. Yes, fans of Poe (and many remain today) and of Hawthorne and Irving (if any remain) may quibble with this. But the styles of these earlier writers were largely drawn from European literature. Edgar was, in fact, more popular in France before he really caught on in America. But when you read a book by Sam, there is no doubt you're reading a book by an American.

Of course, like the writings of all authors, Sam's books and stories are, to put it mildly, of uneven quality. So don't feel bad if you pick up A Double Barrelled Detective Story and find yourself thinking it's a piece of ..., well, finding yourself thinking it's not Sam Clemens at his best. But even Tom and yes, Huck, are showing some cracks with age. Those books we're supposed to like. So why don't they connect with a lot of today's readers?

Part of this, of course, is simply overexposure. After all, how many times can you read about Tom Sawyer whitewashing a fence, for crying out loud? Also the current pastimes and activities of kids are just a wee bit removed from those of Tom and Huck. Today kids don't wander off and explore caves (their parents won't let them) or look for buried treasure (they'd be arrested for trespassing or unauthorized excavation on public land). They sure as heck don't whitewash fences. Instead they hang out at the mall, surf YouTube, and text message their friends. Then, of course, there's style and changes in what is considered fitting and proper. Certainly to our own more politically correct audiences, writing a book in dialect now seems condescending, unnecessary, and even insulting.

As it is, the books that critics have dubbed Sam's "lesser works" are actually the ones that have best stood the test of time. Pick up The Innocents Abroad and Following the Equator and you'll chuckle with sympathy recalling the hassles of your last whirlwind vacation. Read Roughing It and you'll smirk at Sam's get-rich-quick schemes that didn't work a hundred and fifty years ago any more than the ones we have today. And given the recent foibles of some of our major news organizations, publications, and personalities, we see Sam's modus operandi as a fledgling reporter prove he would have fit right in.

The life of Mark Twain was full of honor, wealth, and fame, but Sam Clemens had a pretty rough time of it. His son, Langdon, died before he was two (diptheria), his daughter Susy (earlier spelled "Suzy") died when she was 24 (spinal menningitis), and Jean drowned in a bathtub during an epileptic seizure before she was thirty. Only Clara, the second of the sisters, lived a long life, dying at 88 in 1962. But growing up in what can accurately today be labeled a dysfunctional family (Olivia, Sam's wife, could tell her husband was particularly contented if he only lost his temper four or five times a day), Clara got the hell out as soon as she could and rarely went back.

Olivia was from the well-to-do and progressive Langdon family - so well-to-do and progressive that the Mark Twain House in Hartford (well worth a visit) was paid for (at least in part) with her money. Livy, like many proper Victorian ladies and as it's often put, "enjoyed ill health" all her life. Although her early death (at least in modern terms) at 58 seems to confirm her maladies were real enough, the actual cause of death - like many diagnoses of nineteenth century disease - remains speculative. This was, after all, a time when many "women's complaints" were treated with doses of opium and alcohol, and the cures were literally often worse than the disease.

Sam's books and lectures made him lots of money, but traditionally he's been classed as an absolutely inept businessman. This, though, isn't completely fair. As a publisher he could be astute enough, and he scored a major coup by getting General Grant to write his memoirs. It was a massive critical and financial success, both for Sam and for the General's family, even though Grant himself died a week after he finished the manuscript. If Sam wasn't J. P. Morgan neither was he ..., well, no names.

The primary cause of Sam's financial collapse was his commitment to the Paige typesetter. This was a monstrous, clumsy, and over-engineered type setting machine which was always, the inventor claimed, on the verge of success - provided Sam put up just one more chunk of cash, of course. At one point the developers of the alternate Linotype (the mainstay of the printing industry until offset took over in the 1970's) offered to pool their resources. That way regardless of which machine worked, everyone would win. Sam said no, stuck with the Paige, and completely lost his shirt (one "new fangled gadget" Sam was damned if he'd waste his money on was the telephone). In 1894, he had to declare bancruptcy.

Sam, Livy, and the girls might very well have lost everything to Sam's many creditors except that one of Mark Twain's greatest fans was Standard Oil's Henry Huttleston Rogers. Known affectionately as "Hell Hound" by the many associates, workers, and laborers whom he could (and sometimes did) crush with the stroke of a pen, Henry bailed Sam and Livy out. It was he who insisted on a formal declaration of bancruptcy and acting with full power of attorney dealt with Sam's creditors in a typical Hell Hound fashion.

Getting everything properly structured required considerable financial creativity, but of course, that's one thing Henry excelled at. One of his better ideas was to have Livy named as a "preferred creditor". The rationale is that Livy's inheritance is what funded Sam (and Livy's) rather lavish lifestye, including the purchase of the Hartford home. The money, said Henry, was a loan like any other and Livy should expect repayment. So Livy got the house in Hartford and the copyright to many of Sam's books and stories. If we think this seems a little underhanded and was wheeling-dealing, it was indeed. But this was, after all, Hell Hound Rogers doing the talking, and if the other creditors didn't like it, well, that was just tough tiddy. Then after a worldwide series of lectures and more writing, Sam eventually regained his financial footing. Ironically, they never returned to their - or rather Livy's - Hartford home.

Sam was and continues to be the subject of many enduring tales and andecdotes. Unfortunately, not all of them are true, or at least not likely. One biographer wrote (with a bit of a chiding tone) how Sam obviously admired Jack Slade, whom he met on this way to Nevada. The problem here is that this is a story from Roughing It and no one, not even Sam, really expected the reader to take the story too seriously. Accepting jokes as verbatim accounts is an occasional affliction of serious biographers, such as the time Oxford professor, Richard Ellmann, used one of Oscar Wilde's bantering dinner stories as historical source material.

Another tale that has arisen PI (post-Internet) is that Sam was a vegetarian. Now it is indisputable that Sam Clemens was vehemently anti-vivisection. His writings prove this conclusively, and yes, a vegetarian lifestyle would have been a consistent stand for Sam to take (and a bit more healthful as he aged). But Sam was not always the most consistent of people. Instead what we have today is an error common in Twenty-First Century advocates where they assume their modern philosophy translates directly to those of the past. Here they reason because they are both anti-vivesectionists and vegetarian, then Sam, a Nineteenth Century transplanted Westerner we point out, must also have been both because he was one. Alas, such logic is incorrect, and the case of Sam the Vegetarian flies in the face of the historical record.

It is extremely well documented that Sam Clemens, like many Westerners, enjoyed and even relished steak, oysters (a particular favorite of the era), fish, and fowl. Sam's own letters, from youth to old age, wax with enthusiasm of meat laden meals. Once while on a European tour, he wrote to Livy and practically went into rapture describing breakfasts with beefsteaks, sausage, bacon, chops and dinners of beefsteak and canvasback duck. There's no reference by Sam or any of Sam's friends that he changed his diet even in his last years. Writing after Sam's death, his long time friend, William Dean Howells, stated that at breakfast Sam "sat over his steak and coffee" longer than any other meal. Certainly, this would be an unusual way to describe a vegetarian at his morning table. So yes, Sam was against vivisection, but there's nothing to show he ever forswore his fondness for meat and considerable documentation to show he didn't.

There's one episode in Sam's fairly long life that is still not well known to the general populace although it certainly is to Twain scholars. That was his assembling of a bevy of young girls from (literally) 6 to 16 at his home and on his vacations, particulary when he went off to Bermuda. He called the girls his "angelfish", and they kept him company, went for rides with him, and even were his companions at cards and billiards.

Today such a assemblage would raise some eyebrows, and it did back then too. Clara, in fact, heartily disapproved of her father's "collecting" (the word was Sam's). But despite some admittedly ambiguous letters Sam wrote to one of the girls and a more troublesome but cryptic remark from a third party, there's really no reason to interpret Sam and his angelfish as anything other an elderly man, beset with the loss of his family, surrounding himself with surrogate daughters. And surely by the time he reached old age, Sam had learned, as most men eventually do, that young ladies are nicer people than crotchety old men.

One of Mark Twain's most famous quotes was how he "came in with Halley's comet" and expected to go out with it. He did in 1910 at age 74. The quote is considered authentic, but its actual source is traceable only to Albert Bigelow Paine's biography published in 1912. It makes a good story and, who knows, it might even be true. But everyone should look on claims of after-the-fact prescience with due skepticism. Sam would have.

References

Samuel Langhorne Clemens has to have one of the best documented lives as that of any other celebrity in history. Thousands of letters to, from, and about Sam are extant, and there have been more books and articles and essays and theses written about him than virtually any other writer. A few references are:

Mark Twain A Biography, Albert Bigelow Paine, 3 Volumes, Harper and Brothers (1912) Long looked on as the definitive biography by a personal friend, like all primary source material it has to be read carefully and with proper caution. Albert removed some of the more unpleasant aspects of Sam's personality, and in this he had some help from Clara who also didn't care for airing the family's dirty linen. One problem with modern readers is the volumes come off less as a biography than a three volume collection of anecdotes. As mentioned below, this biography is on-line.

"Mark Twain: A Life, Ron Powers, Free Press (2005).The most recent biography. Lots of information about Sam but his boyhood is compressed, possibly because Ron wrote an earlier book specifically about the young Sam Clemens (see below - directly below).

Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain, Ron Powers, Basic Books (1999). Not a happy childhood all in all if you believe this book (and there's no reason not to). This makes up a bit for the brevity of the Sam's early days if the full biography.

Mark Twain: God's Fool, Hamlin Hill, Harper and Row, (1973). This deals with the last ten years of Sam's life. If his boyhood wasn't an idyllic postoral existence, then his last years were not the tranquil sunset ripening of Cicero.

Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain Justin Kaplan , Simon and Schuster (1966). Probably the definitive of the popular biographies in the pre-internet days.

Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography, Geoffrey Ward, Ken Burns, and Dayton Duncan, Knopf, (2001). Calling a spade a spade this is a biography of Mark Twain with plenty of illustrations. Based (obviously) on the Ken Burns biographical film which is 1) a good film and 2) raises some hackles of some academic historians who 1) think there is oversimplification and misuse of pictures for the topic being discussed and 2) probably are irritated with popular success of non-academic histories based on television.

Mark Twain, Business Man Samuel Webster, Little, Brown and Company (1946). An interesting early "revisionist" biography. The author's father, Charles L. Webster, was the business partner of Sam Clemens in the publishing trade (Huckleberry Finn was published under the Charles Webster imprint). The younger Webster tells us his father was the buffer between Sam and the Real World and so was either fighting off people who wanted to start a lawsuit against Sam or preventing Sam from filing lawsuits against those who had offended against him. In its time, the book was popular (it got a good review by publisher, essayist, and "What's My Line" panelist Bennett Cerf) and shaped Twain scholarship for a while as it made Sam look like a cantankerous curmudgeon and who sent a supplicant to Charles with the sealed note: "Dear Charley, Give this man what he wants or kill him. I don't care which. Yours truly, S. L. Clemens". But take the book with a grain of salt. Charles could be cantankerous himself and modern opinion is that the younger Webster borrowed some of Charles' rascality and bestowed it on Sam.

Internet Sources

Most of Sam's works are online, often in nice convenient formats with all the illustrations of the original. Of course, while bookstores still last you can find his books, either as first published or in abridged (i. e., expurgated and censored) versions for the kids.

"Project Gutenberg", http://www.gutenberg.org/

Just search Mark Twain as author or subject and you'll find tons of references. The true Twain scholar will want to read the biography by Albert Bigelow Paine, although as we said above, it must be read with proper caution. Also of interest to the Twain researcher is The Complete Letters of Mark Twain, also by Albert at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3199/3199.txt. Unfortunately it is not really complete by any means and the real Complete Letters of Mark Twain (published by the University of California Press) has now reached 6 volumes and it's not complete either. To date the volumes only go up to 1875. "My Mark Twain" by William Dean Howells (a long time friend) is also available at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/3/9/3390/3390.txt.

The Mark Twain Papers & Project", http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/MTP/

The site for Berkeley's Mark Twain papers. A good number of the letters are on-line and accessible to the public. As mentioned above the letters are in book form up to 1875, but you have to pay for them and the volumes are a bit on the pricey side.

The Mark Twain Project", http://www.marktwainproject.org/

Not to be confused the Berkeley web site. Documents, biographies, and in general a lot of information about Sam, his friends, and family. A bit confusing in their layout and some non-standard formating of text (example: right-justified - but not left - text in the biographies).

Mark Twain and his Times", http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/index.html

Many photos from the U of V collection, texts of books, and most interestingly, of a number lectures and dinner speeches with an interactive map of Sam's intinerary. Possibly the best site - that is, if they'd remove the splash page. You can avoid that by going directly to http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/index2.html

"Mark Twain Web" http://www.twainweb.net/

Mostly a forum of exchange of information for people interested in Mark Twains' life. Some good reading.

"Mark Twain Quotes", http://www.twainquotes.com/

What else? Mark Twain quotes. But not just short quotes conveniently arranged (which there are), but also extended texts. A lot of good stuff about Mark as well, including excepts from the personal memoir of Elizabeth Wallace, "Mark Twain and the Happy Island" about the times he vacationed in Bermuda at http://www.twainquotes.com/bermuda/bermindex.html.

A good discussion of Sam and his angelfish is at http://www.twainquotes.com/angelfish/angelfish.html.

One very annoying feature. A little pulsating New indicator. You really don't need the animation.

"Mark Twain, Business Man: The Margins of Profit," Alan Gribben, http://www.compedit.com/mark_twain,_business.htm. Actually a posting of an article from a bonafide journal Studies in American Humor in this case from Volume 1 Number 1 (New Series), pp. 23 - 34 (1980). This article points out that Sam was 1) neither a totally inept entepreneur nor 2) a universally savvy one. He made some good investments, but also some bad ones. Balancing the dual career of writer and publisher often left him insufficient time to do either as well as he could have.

Visual Media

"Mark Twain", Directed by Ken Burns, PBS (2001). Despite grumping by some academics (as usual with Ken's films), this is a nice, well-crafted documentary that covers Sam's life as good as possible given the restrictions of visual media with a time limit. How Ken Burns can make hours of looking at still photographs (with occasional old motion pictures) interesting remains a mystery. But he does.

An audio CD is available for those who want to learn about Sam's life and still do other stuff at the same time.

But as always, the final warning for the Media Age. Never confuse fictionalized or docudramas films with reality. It is, lamentably, considered acceptable for screenwriters to simplify and even invent episodes out of the whole cloth. Just as you should never think that Charlton Heston in "The Agony and the Ecstasy" is Michelangelo (who never really yelled at a Pope), any similarities with Mark Twain and Fredric March in "The Adventures of Mark Twain" are virtually non-existent.

Personal Communications

It is with great pleasure that CooperToons acknowledges the review, criticism, and suggestions of Mark Twain scholar, humanitarian, and Epicurean gastronome William T. Cooper, who despite the similarity in names, denies any familial relationship.