The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Works

Edited by Shelley Fisher Fishkin

A century and a half of the best writing about America’s quintessential writer.

Overview
Table of Contents
Contributors

Overview

Story of the Week Rudyard Kipling, “An Interview with Mark Twain”

Story of the Week George Ade, “Mark Twain as Our Emissary”

News Mark Twain and William Dean Howells: the friendship that transformed American literature

Save $125 when you buy all eight volumes of the Complete Mark Twain Library.

For William Dean Howells, Mark Twain was “the Lincoln of our literature”; for William Faulkner, he was “the first truly American writer,” and for Eugene O’Neill, “the true father of American literature.” Ernest Hemingway famously asserted that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” During his lifetime and in the hundred years since his death, Mark Twain has been one of the most beloved and widely read of authors, not just in America but around the world. He has been especially cherished by other writers, who have drawn inspiration from many different aspects of his work.

The Mark Twain Anthology brings together the words of over 60 writers, from his earliest reviewers to today, probing the many facets of Mark Twain: his incomparable humor, his revolutionary use of vernacular language, his exploration of the realities of American life, his irreverence and skepticism, his profound grappling with issues of race, his fearless opposition to the injustices and outrages of an imperialistic age.

The range of voices is extraordinarily diverse, a tribute to the diversity and complexity of Twain’s art. During his lifetime Twain was reviewed, interviewed, and assessed by writers as different as Lafcadio Hearn, José Martí, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw. They were joined, in the century that followed, by G. K. Chesterton, H. L. Mencken, Jorge Luis Borges, Theodore Dreiser, George Orwell, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Ralph Ellison, and many others, with recent commentary by David Bradley, Erica Jong, Toni Morrison, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Dick Gregory, Min Jin Lee, and Roy Blount Jr.

Of special interest is Twain’s international impact. The Mark Twain Anthology presents a broad selection of responses to Twain from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, many of the pieces translated for the first time. The book also includes a selection of visual tributes to Twain (by artists ranging from James Montgomery Flagg to Jean Cocteau to Chuck Jones) and a sampler of shorter comments by individuals as varied as Friedrich Nietzsche, Harry S. Truman, Richard Pryor, Gertrude Stein, and Charles Darwin.

Shelley Fisher Fishkin, volume editor, is Professor of English and Director of American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of 33 books on Mark Twain including Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture; Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American Voices; Mark Twain’s Book of Animals; and the 29-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She has served as president of the American Studies Association and of the Mark Twain Circle of America, and was a producer of Mark Twain’s Is He Dead? on Broadway. She is a founding editor of the Journal of Transnational American Studies.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Works is kept in print by a gift from Benito Cachinero-Sánchez and Deborah G. Gorman to the Guardians of American Letters Fund, made in memory of Benito Cachinero Reina and Donald Gerald Gorman.
Table of Contents

Various authors
Twain Matters: A Sampler

David Ross Locke
From New Books (1869)

Mark Twain
Memoranda: An Entertaining Article (1870)

Thérèse Bentzon
From Les Humoristes Américains: Mark Twain (The American Humorists: Mark Twain) (1872)

Eduard Engel
From Mark Twain: Ein Amerikanischer “Humorist” (Mark Twain: An American “Humorist”) (1880)
from Mark Twain (1897)

Lafcadio Hearn
Mark Twain on the Mississippi (1883)

José Martí
From Escenas Norteamericanas (North American Scenes) (1884, 1890)

Henry Gauthier-Villars
From Mark Twain (1884)

Hamlin Garland
Mark Twain’s Latest (1890)

Rudyard Kipling
An Interview with Mark Twain (1890)

Andrew Lang
On the Art of Mark Twain (1891)

Theodor Herzl
From Mark Twain in Paris (1894)

William Dean Howells
Mark Twain: An Inquiry (1901)

Ángel Guerra
From Prólogo: Mark Twain, Cuentos Escogidos (Prologue to Mark Twain: Selected Tales) (1903)

Livia Bruni
From L’Umorismo Americano: Mark Twain” (American Humor: Mark Twain) (1905)

George Bernard Shaw
Letter to Samuel L. Clemens (1907)

Marina Tsvetaeva
Books Bound in Red (1910)

Johannes V. Jensen
Mark Twain (1910)

George Ade
Mark Twain as Our Emissary (1910)

G. K. Chesterton
Mark Twain (1910)

Jesús Castellanos
From Mark Twain (1910)

George Soule
Mark Twain Protests (1916)

H. L. Mencken
From Mark Twain (1919)

Maks Erik
From Sholem Aleichem and Mark Twain: Notes on the Eighth Anniversary of Sholem Aleichem’s Death (1924)

Helen Keller
Our Mark Twain (1929)

Lu Xun
From A Short Introduction to “Eve’s Diary” (1931)

Jorge Luis Borges
Una Vindicación de Mark Twain (A Vindication of Mark Twain) (1935)

Theodore Dreiser
Mark the Double Twain (1935)

Sterling Brown
From The Negro in American Fiction (1937)

Grant Wood
My Debt to Mark Twain (1937)

George Orwell
Mark Twain— the Licensed Jester (1943)

Bernard DeVoto
From Introduction to The Portable Mark Twain (1946)

Leslie Fiedler
Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, Huck Honey! (1948)

T. S. Eliot
Introduction to Huckleberry Finn (1950)

W. H. Auden
Huck and Oliver (1953)

Ralph Ellison
Twentieth-Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity (1953)

Wallace Stegner
Yarn-Spinner in the American Vein (1957)

Mike Gold
Twain in the Slums (1959)

Yan Bereznitsky
From Mark Twain on the Bed of Procrustes (1959)
From The Question Is Significantly More Profound: A Letter to Charles Neider (1960)

Lao She
From Mark Twain: Exposer of the “Dollar Empire” (1960)

Edward Field
Mark Twain and Sholem Aleichem (1963)

Abel Startsev
From Mark Twain in America (1963)

Kenzaburo Oe
From An American Traveler’s Dreams—Huckleberry Finn Who Goes to Hell (1966)

John Seelye
from The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1970)

Robert Penn Warren
Last Laugh (1978)

Norman Mailer
Huck Finn, Alive at 100 (1984)

David Carkeet
From I Been There Before (1985)

Chuck Jones
from Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist (1989)

David Bradley
Introduction to How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (1996)

E. L. Doctorow
Introduction to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1996)

Hal Holbrook
Introduction to Mark Twain’s Speeches (1996)

Erica Jong
Introduction to 1601 and Is Shakespeare Dead?: “Deliberate Lewdness” and the Lure of Immortality (1996)

Ursula K. Le Guin
Introduction to The Diaries of Adam and Eve: Reading Young, Reading Old (1996)

Toni Morrison
Introduction to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1996)

Gore Vidal
Introduction to Following the Equator and Anti-Imperialist Essays (1996)

Kurt Vonnegut
Some Comments on Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Kurt Vonnegut at the Age of Seventy-Two (1996)

Ralph Wiley
From What’s Up with Mad Mark Twain? (1996)

Dick Gregory
From Callus on My Soul (with Shelia P. Moss) (2000)

Ron Powers
What Hath Happened to “The War-Prayer”? (2006)

Michael Blakemore
Is He Alive? (2008)

Min Jin Lee
Money as an American Character and the Legacy of Permission: Or How Mark Twain Taught Me That It Was Okay to Talk About Money (2009)

Roy Blount Jr.
America’s Original Superstar (2008)
Contributors

George Ade
W. H. Auden
Thérèse Bentzon
Yan Bereznitsky
Michael Blakemore
Roy Blount Jr.
Jorge Luis Borges
David Bradley
Sterling Brown
Livia Bruni
David Carkeet
Jesús Castellanos
G. K. Chesterton
Bernard DeVoto
E. L. Doctorow
Theodore Dreiser
T. S. Eliot
Ralph Ellison
Eduard Engel
Maks Erik
Leslie Fiedler
Edward Field
Hamlin Garland
Henry Gauthier-Villars
Mike Gold
Dick Gregory
Ángel Guerra
Lafcadio Hearn
Theodor Herzl
Hal Holbrook
William Dean Howells
Johannes V. Jensen
Chuck Jones
Erica Jong
Helen Keller
Rudyard Kipling
Andrew Lang
Lao She
Min Jin Lee
Ursula Le Guin
David Ross Locke
Lu Xun
Norman Mailer
José Martí
H. L. Mencken
Toni Morrison
Kenzaburō Ōe
George Orwell
Ron Powers
John Seelye
George Bernard Shaw
George Soule
Abel Startsev
Wallace Stegner
Marina Tsvetaeva
Mark Twain
Gore Vidal
Kurt Vonnegut
Robert Penn Warren
Ralph Wiley
Grant Wood

add to cart

14.00 List Price: $35.00 (Save: 60%) Free shipping

Or buy from our partners

Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #202178

ISBN: 978-1-59853-065-0 518 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

N° 199 Library of America Series

Subscribers can purchase the slipcased edition by signing in to their accounts.

Related Books

Mark Twain: Mississippi Writings LOA N°5

Mark Twain: The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It LOA N°21

Mark Twain: A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, Other Travels LOA N°200

Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1852–1890 LOA N°60

Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1891–1910 LOA N°61

Library of America

Curator

A champion of America’s great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation’s history and culture.

Learn More

Publisher

From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely recognized as America’s literary canon.

Browse our books Subscribe

Non-Profit

With contributions from donors, Library of America preserves and celebrates a vital part of our cultural heritage for generations to come.

Support our mission