So much needs to be known about Samuel Clemens. It is more than his fine books, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Innocents Abroad, Pudd 'n Head Wilson, The Prince and the Pauper, Roughing It, and many more. We need the printer, the publisher, the lecturer, the philosopher, the humorist, riverboat pilot, world traveler, critic, as well as the author. Our core book achieves that balance and goes beyond Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain by Kaplan. Mark Twain created an American literature that endured. The history of Clemens' time as well as his influence on people's thinking. Mark Twain has made the West and the World as places we should smile and appreciate. His lecturing must have been imposing at the podium, cracking stories and sharp comments to the throngs who heard him speak. No wonder Hal Holbrook wanted to re-enact parts of his life.
Our trip will occur as a literary and historical journey through the settling of the West, the advent of the Gilded Age (he coined the term), and the growing up of America (19th Century). Why did Twain eventually locate in Hartford, Connecticut for his later years? What was it like growing up in Hannibal, Missouri? How would you have liked to ride on a riverboat with your Pilot Twain? What was it like to write as a journalist in Nevada and look for the Comstock Lode around Carson City? Why did Twain go bankrupt when he was so popular? How could Twain have thought General Grant's autobiography would make a highly popular book? Why was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn even banned in some schools during Twain's lifetime? Why are his books not always appreciated by the "Woke" patrons? Why are some of his books banned by selected public schools? What bound up Clemens and America so closely? What did Mark Twain mean to America (courtesy, Prof. Stephen Railton)?
My strong interest in Twain goes back to grade school and beyond. My first black and white filml I saw was shown at a country town school auditorium, Huckleberry Finn. I was entranced with the characterizations. Then, I ended up reading every Classics Illustrated Comic on the Twain books. Go ahead a few years to high school and early college, and I found and devoured Kaplan's book on Twain. Over the years after college and teaching positions, I heard Hal Holbrook's rendition at Cal Tech or the Pasadena Auditorium, I believe. I still admit to paraphrasing one of Twain's famous phrases, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
Come and join us for a stimulating 14 weeks of the life of Mark Twain, the writings and influence of Twain, and the legacy he has left all Americans and the world. It is a journey worth considering. Ron Powers' book has been labeled by one critic: . . . "this is one of the best American literary biographies to appear in many years." The photos are beautifully reproduced in the Powers book. The figments of Twain's mind become alive (Weekly Standard). The author Powers even calls him America's Shakespeare.
Session 1. Homage to Twain. Famous Missouri Author. 1835-1910 (75 Yrs.). Signal Literary Preoccupations: travel, journalism, novel, and memoir. Austere Manner of John Marshall Clemens. Sleepwalker and "Second Sight." Obsession with the color White. Acute Attentiveness to Language. Loving the town of Hannibal. What the River Meant. The Terror of Childhood. Life-Changing Experience with Reading.
Session 2. The Hannibal Decade: 10 Years of His Life. Job Hopping. Fascination with Typesetting. Hannibal's Early Journalism.
Session 3. Traveling in the East and Midwest. Know-Nothings in Immigrant Neighborhoods. Starting to Keep Notebook. Fascination with Riverboats. Becoming a Riverboat Captain. Haunting Image of Henry Clemens' Death.
Session 4. Riding the Stagecoach to Nevada. Working for the Territorial Enterprise (Virginia City). Signing His Pen Name. Attraction to San Francisco. Influence of Artemus Ward on His Lecturing. Carson Massacre Hoax. Close to Duel with Rival Paper.
Session 5. Experiencing International San Francisco. Meetings with Bret Harte. Losing Money in Mining Stocks. The Jumping Frog Episode. Trying Hand As Interviewer. Touring Hawaii. Electrifying the Lecture Crowd.
Session 6. Travels on the Quaker City Steamship to Europe and Holy Land. Background for Innocents Abroad. Courting Mary Fairbanks. First Time Meeting Grant. Introduction to Olivia Langdon.
Session 7. History of Olivia Langdon. Romance of Olivia. Twain As Curiosity, Not Marriage Material. American Vandal Lecture. Continual Courtship of Livy. Fall Publishing of Innocents Abroad. Bret Harte Editing.
Session 8. Meeting and Enduring Friendship with William Dean Howells. Marriage Vows for Clemens. Developing the Sketch. Arresting Brady Photograph. Development of Roughing It. Leaving Buffalo for Elmira. On the Lecture Circuit Again. Lambasted Critics' Review of His Lyceum Lecture. Windfall of Roughing It distribution.
Session 9. Birth of Olivia Susan Clemens. Langdon Dying at 19 Months. Trip to England for Copyright Disputes and Research. Publication of The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day. The Choice of Hotels. Criticism of Political Satire. Writing Five Chapters of Tom Sawyer. Second Daughter Born.
Session 10. Reconstruction Falling Apart. Howells Guiding Clemens on Life on the Mississippi. Revising Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old Published. American Celebration of 1876. Best Picture of Childhood Written by American: Tom Sawyer Published.
Session 11. Collaborating with a Play and Bret Harte. Pleasure Trip to Bermuda. Ah Sin Play a Mild Success. Conceiving Ideas for The Prince and the Pauper. Breaking with Bret Harte. Installing First Telephone in Hartford. Creating the Celebrity Roast. Working on A Tramp Abroad on his German adventures. 17 Months Away from Home.
Session 12. Rekindling Romance with Laura Wright. (Wattie Correspondence). Publishing The Prince and the Pauper. Harvesting Tales from New Orleans Visit. Revising Huckleberry Finn. William Howells' Tribute. Publishing Life on the Mississippi. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Published, and Criticism Mounts. Mark Twain' Terms with Grant's Book. Clara Favoring The Prince and the Pauper. Grant's Death and Vol. I of Memoirs Published.
Session 13. Beginnings of A Connecticut Yankee. Courting Bankruptcy with Typesetter (Paige). Failure of The Life of Pope Leo XIII. Defending Grant's Memoirs. Publishing A Connecticut Yankee. Illness of Howells. Taking the Waters in Switzerland. Publishing Tom Sawyer Abroad. Publishing Pudd 'n Head Wilson,
Session 14. Henry Rogers, Business and Book Agent. Twain Paying Off Debts. Two Daughters Stricken with Illnesses. Attacking James Fenimore Cooper's Books in Print. Paige Typesetter's Investment Losses in Today's Dollar $3.3M to 4.9M. Recouping the $100,000 Debt: Lecture Itinerary in 100 World Cities, 53,000 Miles. Earning $20-25,000. Sending Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Serialization to Harper's. Suzy Losing Sight and Eventually Dying. Writing Following the Equator (1897). The Mysterious Stranger Published after Clemens' Death. Highest Paid Man in Letters. Hartford House Sold (1891-1903). Dictating Autobiography, Death of Livy and Marriage of Clara. Death of Twain (1910). Incomparably Complex, Rich, Fruitful, and Tangled Life.
Core Book
Powers, Ron. Mark Twain: A Life. New York: Free Press, 2005. (now in paperback)
Supplementary References
Bliss, Donald Tiffany. Mark Twain's Tale of Today. Charleston, South Carolina; Hale & Northam LLC, 2012.
Duckett, Margaret. Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Norman, Oklahoma; University of Oklahoma Press, 1964.
Kaplan, Fred. The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography. New York: Anchor Books, 2010.
Perry, Mark. Grant and Twain; The Story of a Friendship That Changed America. New York; Random House, 2004.
Powers, Ron. Dangerous Water; A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain. Cambridge, Massachusetts; Da Capo Press, 1999.
Scharnhorst, Gary. The LIfe of Mark Twain, 1891-1910: The Final Years. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2022.
Smith, Harriet Elinror, ed. Autobiography of Mark Twain. Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010, 2001.
Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians; Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.
Twain, Mark. The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1999.