Description
Book SynopsisThis 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.
Trade Review"The editors have done an exemplary job in maintaining a very high level of scholarly excellence in almost all these contributions. On a vast range of subjects there is a plenitude here of scholarly research and insight, some of it at least exploring new ground … and much of it proving illuminating and challenging." (
Notes and Queries, June 2009)
"Highly recommended for the reference shelves of libraries collecting work on American literature and culture." (Reference Reviews)
Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors x
Note on Referencing xvii
Acknowledgments xix
PART I The Cultural Context 1
1 Mark Twain and Nation 3
Randall Knoper
2 Mark Twain and Human Nature 21
Tom Quirk
3 Mark Twain and America's Christian Mission Abroad 38
Susan K. Harris
4 Mark Twain and Whiteness 53
Richard S. Lowry
5 Mark Twain and Gender 66
Peter Stoneley
6 Twain and Modernity 78
T. J. Lustig
7 Mark Twain and Politics 94
James S. Leonard
8 "The State, it is I": Mark Twain, Imperialism, and the New Americanists 109
Scott Michaelsen
PART II Mark Twain and Others 123
9 Twain, Language, and the Southern Humorists 125
Gavin Jones
10 The "American Dickens": Mark Twain and Charles Dickens 141
Christopher Gair
11 Nevada Influences on Mark Twain 157
Lawrence I. Berkove
12 The Twain-Cable Combination 172
Stephen Railton
13 Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Realism 186
Peter Messent
PART III Mark Twain: Publishing and Performing 209
14 "I don't know A from B" Mark Twain and Orality 211
Thomas D. Zlatic
15 Mark Twain and the Profession of Writing 228
Leland Krauth
16 Mark Twain and the Promise and Problems of Magazines 243
Martin T. Buinicki
17 Mark Twain and the Stage 259
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
18 Mark Twain on the Screen 274
R. Kent Rasmussen and Mark Dawidziak
PART IV Mark Twain and Travel 291
19 Twain and the Mississippi 293
Andrew Dix
20 Mark Twain and the Literary Construction of the American West 309
Gary Scharnhorst
21 Mark Twain and Continental Europe 324
Holger Kersten
22 Mark Twain and Travel Writing 338
Jeffrey Alan Melton
PART V Mark Twain' Fiction 355
23 Mark Twain's Short Fiction 357
Henry B. Wonham
24 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Prince and the Pauper as Juvenile Literature 371
Linda A. Morris
25 Plotting and Narrating "Huck" 387
Victor Doyno
26 Going to Tom's Hell in Huckleberry Finn 401
Hilton Obenzinger
27 History, "Civilization," and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court 416
Sam Halliday
28 Mark Twain's Dialects 431
David Lionel Smith
29 Killing Half A Dog, Half A Novel: The Trouble With The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and The Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins 441
John Bird
30 Dreaming Better Dreams: The Late Writing of Mark Twain 449
Forrest G. Robinson
PART VI Mark Twain's Humor 467
31 Mark Twain's Visual Humor 469
Louis J. Budd
32 Mark Twain and Post-Civil War Humor 485
Cameron C. Nickels
33 Mark Twain and Amiable Humor 500
Gregg Camfield
34 Mark Twain and the Enigmas of Wit 513
Bruce Michelson
PART VII A Retrospective 531
35 The State of Mark Twain Studies 533
Alan Gribben
Index 555
