Mark Twain

The year is a busy one in Mark Twain studies, highlighted by a new and, when complete, comprehensive biography, an excellent study of Twain's conflicted views of Native Americans, special issues and sections of journals, and several books and articles that break new and promising ground. An unfortunate trend that continues is work that does not make reference to previous scholarship, a problem that could be remedied by reading the 50-plus years of this chapter.

i Biographical Studies and Editions

Gary Scharnhorst's The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835–1871 (Missouri), the first of three projected volumes, is the first multivolume biography of Twain since Albert Bigelow Paine's three volumes (1912). Its scope allows Scharnhorst to deal with Twain's life and work more fully than in the many subsequent biographies since Paine's. He aims to sort "facts from factoids or truth from truthiness," correcting many long-held beliefs through careful research. He justifies yet another biography for several reasons: a wider focus than that of many other biographies, often limited by a narrow ideological or psychological perspective, and new technology that enhances research, especially in widening access to newspaper archives. Scharnhorst proposes a "better way" of writing biography—"a biography plotted from beginning to end from a single point of view on an expansive canvas"—and he promises to avoid "presentism," that he will "resist the temptation to evaluate Sam's life by reinventing him as if he were our contemporary." He warns his reader not to expect bombshells or the revelation of dark secrets, although his biography contains both.

His 18 chapters are arranged chronologically and mostly by location, covering Clemens's ancestry, his childhood, the death of his father (which Scharnhorst speculates was caused by syphilis), his work as a cub printer, and his travels to a succession of U.S. cities as a jour printer. He claims, controversially, that "the circumstantial evidence is substantial and almost incontrovertible that [Clemens] was a latent pedophile with prepubescent lasses," although he admits that "no solid evidence of any actual improper behavior toward young girls has ever surfaced." He covers Sam's short time with the Marion Rangers, once again separating fact from Twain's fiction, then the move to the West and the pursuit of mining and journalism. Scharnhorst supports the story that the pen name derived from Sam's drinking, with "two marks" being made toward his bar tabs, tacitly discounting the recent argument from Kevin Mac Donnell that the name was taken from Clemens's reading of a magazine (see American Literary Scholarship [AmLS] 2012, p. 76). He speculates about Clemens's sexual habits and the possibility that, like his father, he contracted venereal disease. "Sam's decision to travel to the West in June 1861," he argues, "was the most crucial one he ever made, for he likely would not have found his calling anywhere else on the continent." Scharnhorst proceeds to the subsequent major events: Twain's further move west to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii); lecturing in San Francisco; the Quaker City cruise; the publication of his first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1867); the brief but influential period in Washington, D.C.; courtship and marriage to Olivia Langdon; and the move to Buffalo. The final chapter, "Buffalo Exitus," recounts Twain's writing for the Galaxy, with special attention to his short piece, "Map of Paris," then his departure from Buffalo in 1871 at a very low point personally and professionally.

Overall, The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835–1871 is a monumental biography, especially considering that two additional volumes will follow. Scharnhorst's book is scrupulously researched, turning up new sources, correcting many previous errors, and delineating the life in a detail never before achieved. While some may prefer a biography with more literary zest, Scharnhorst's straightforward, reliable, and comprehensive narrative, when complete, will no doubt remain definitive for a generation—or longer. In addition to the 561 pages of text, 100 pages of notes and bibliography together constitute a valuable work of their own.

In Mark Twain (Reaktion), a title...