Mark Twain

The year sees publication of the second volume of a massive new biography of Mark Twain, two special issues of journals, the first volume of an important updated reference work on Twain's reading, a book on the Mississippi River that breaks new ground, a book on Twain's early violent writing, a collection of letters, and a slew of critical and biographical articles and book chapters.

i Letters

A New Orleans Author in Mark Twain's Court: Letters from Grace King's New England Sojourns, ed. Miki Pfeffer (LSU), collects letters from Grace King, Mark Twain, the Clemens family, and others, from 1885 to 1930. Through the letters and editorial commentary, Pfeffer fully documents the literary and personal friendship between the Southern writer King and Twain, but even more so, the deep bond between King and Livy Clemens as well as the Clemens daughters. King's impressions of Twain from a Southern perspective add a dimension to his biography, and her letters to and from Livy and the children add to our growing appreciation of Twain's family life. The arc of this friendship builds from happy times in Hartford to exile in Europe for the Clemens family, descending into grief over the deaths of Susy, Livy, Jean, and Twain, offering a perspective on Twain's biography that is revealing and touching. Pfeffer's scrupulously edited collection of letters is also very readable and interesting as a narrative.

Edited by Leslie Myrick and Christopher Ohge, "Mark Twain: April Fool, 1884" (Scholarly Editing 38 [2017]; scholarlyediting.org/2017/editions/aprilfools/intro.html) is an online edition of 1884 letters to Mark Twain, the April Fool's joke that George Washington Cable played on his friend. Myrick and Ohge present 78 letters from various people, most requesting an autograph, a request that always exasperated Twain. The scholarly introduction, the explanatory notes, and the short biographies of the senders are an important resource, and the letters, both transcribed and presented in facsimile, constitute a treasury of humor. Even Twain, who detested practical jokes, found this one delicious.

Gary Scharnhorst continues to uncover new letters through his biographical research. "A Sheaf of Recovered Mark Twain Letters" (American Literary Realism [ALR] 52: 89–94) presents 13 letters from 1900 to 1909, some only excerpts, several declining invitations to speak. Scharnhorst's "Mark Twain on Baseball: A Recovered Letter to the Editor" (ALR 51: 180–81) notes Twain's interest in baseball and recovers an 1877 letter to the Hartford Times, objecting to fixed games.

ii Biographical Studies

Scharnhorst continues his projected three-volume biography with his second volume, The Life of Mark Twain: The Middle Years, 1871–1891 (Missouri). It could be subtitled "The Rise and Fall" or "The Glory and the Pity." In any case, Twain's middle years saw him ascend to his greatest achievements, then descend to a personal and professional decline that was to continue for the next decade. Scharnhorst has thoroughly and meticulously documented this crucial period in a way that no Twain biographer has done before. The promise of the first volume (see American Literary Scholarship [AmLS] 2018, pp. 69–71) is extended in this massive and trustworthy continuation. His 17 chapters chronicle Twain's life and work, from his disillusionment with Buffalo to his family's move to Hartford to their departure for Europe. Scharnhorst covers the composition, publication, and reception of Twain's major works during this productive period—Roughing It (1872), The Gilded Age (1873), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), A Tramp Abroad (1880), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)—as well as collections and important short works such as "A True Story" (1874), "The Facts Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" (1876), and "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" (1885). For each work, Scharnhorst provides a full overview of the reviews, both positive and negative, expertly tracing critical and public reaction as Twain rose to the height of his powers.

Covered as well are the lecture tours, with quotations from...