Thank you for your review.

Anything in there about Mark Twain's abbreviated stint as a Washington
Correspondent from late Nov. 1867 - March 1868?



On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 3:42 AM, Barbara Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> BOOK REVIEW
>
>
> _The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835-1871_. By Gary Scharnhorst.
> University of Missouri Press, 2018. Pp. 686. Hardcover. ISBN
> 978-0-8262-2144-5. $36.95.
>
>
> Many books reviewed on the Forum are available at discounted prices from
> the TwainWeb Bookstore, and purchases from this site generate commissions
> that benefit the Mark Twain Project. Please visit <http://www.twainweb.net
> >.
>
>
> Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by
> Barbara Schmidt
>
>
> Copyright (c) 2018 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
> redistributed in any medium without permission.
>
>
> _The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835-1871_ is the first volume in
> a planned 3-volume edition from Gary Scharnhorst, university professor,
> editor, and noted Mark Twain scholar. It is a well-written and
> well-documented attempt to untangle the facts from the myths and legends
> that surround the early life of Samuel Clemens. Much of the information
> that has been published about Clemens's early life originated with Clemens
> himself who embellished, embroidered, and misremembered facts in his own
> writings and autobiography. His hand-picked biographer Albert Bigelow
> Paine, who lived nearby him during his last years and assumed the role of a
> surrogate son, exercised a rigid determination to please the Clemens family
> and protect their reputation. Paine's 1912 biography has been rightly
> criticized for being less than objective.
>
>
> Scharnhorst supports his arguments for a new multi-volume biography of
> Clemens with unflinching disdain for Paine. He refers to Paine as "a young
> sycophant without a pedigree" (xviii), a man who had a "lack of
> professional training" (xxiii), and a "hagiographer" (439). Scharnhorst
> judges Paine using twenty-first century standards. It is a common attitude
> displayed by many of today's scholars who overlook nineteenth century
> realities. Such treatment of Paine was recently discussed by Mary Eden in
> her excellent article in the _Mark Twain Journal_ (Spring 2018).
>
>
> Scharnhorst states his goal is to provide a multi-volume biography of
> Clemens from his personal and "single point of view on an expansive canvas"
> (xxvi). While some scholars such as Greg Camfield have suggested that
> specialized, tightly focused, single-volume biographies are the best way to
> capture the complexity of Clemens's life, Scharnhorst disagrees and feels
> such coverage only leads to "wildly different conclusions." He compares the
> wide array of current biographies written by a multitude of scholars to
> constructing a "grotesque Cadillac from spare parts from different models"
> (xxvi). However, Scharnhorst makes clear in his preface that readers should
> expect "no bombshells" or "dark secrets" in this first volume. He is
> correct--the material should be familiar ground to many scholars.
>
>
> Scharnhorst's preface also makes clear that his point of view is contrary
> to those of many scholars today--such as Shelley Fisher Fishkin who feels
> that Clemens and his works are still relevant and that he is "more a
> creature of our time than of his" (xxvii). Scharnhorst disdains the Mark
> Twain impersonators in white linen suits and fright wigs who mimic "a
> middle-aged bankrupt" and he has no love to share for "coffee-table
> compilations of his maxims" (xxviii). Scharnhorst's approach prompted one
> early reader of an advance reading copy of the book to comment, "As I read
> parts of his book I could not shake the feeling that GS doesn't like
> Twain."
>
>
> Examining Clemens's life up to 1871, the book's eighteen chapters cover his
> ancestry, childhood, journeyman printing work, steamboat piloting, the
> Civil War experiences, life in Nevada and California, Sandwich Islands
> trip, Holy Land excursion, platform lecturing, his courtship and marriage,
> and newspaper work in Buffalo, New York. Among Scharnhorst's strengths are
> his flair for providing interesting historical context and his keen
> awareness of who has written what in the past, whether it be major works on
> Mark Twain or obscure journal articles written decades in the past. He
> frequently challenges both past and present scholars when their views
> differ from his own.
>
>
> Early in his book, Scharnhorst declares that there is enough circumstantial
> evidence to label Samuel Clemens a "latent pedophile, obsessed with
> prepubescent lasses" (105). It is a psychoanalytic theory advanced as early
> as 1977 by John Seelye in _Mark Twain in the Movies_ and in 1991 by Guy
> Cardwell in _The Man Who Was Mark Twain_. Some readers will likely conclude
> that Scharnhorst overreaches in his search for convincing evidence by
> citing Clemens's affectionate letter to his sister-in-law Mollie Clemens
> asking her to kiss his six-year-old niece Jennie for him. Scharnhorst
> characterizes the letter as "creepy" (105). To further his argument he
> labels the compliment Clemens gave his wife Livy calling her "slender and
> beautiful and girlish" as "most unusual" (106). In a further observation he
> states that Clemens's pet names for his wife seemed to "infantilize her"
> (610). In the end, however, Scharnhorst concludes "no solid evidence of any
> actual improper behavior toward young girls has ever surfaced" (107). In
> further efforts at psychoanalysis, Scharnhorst theorizes that both Clemens
> and his brother Orion may have suffered from attention deficit
> hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He quotes Clemens's statement, "I was born
> excited" as well as a long passage from a memoir written by Clemens's
> fellow journalist and roommate Dan De Quille who described Clemens as
> "nervously overstrung." To further support this argument Scharnhorst points
> out "As is common for children with ADHD, many of Sam's early friends were
> younger than he was" (40).
>
>
> Livy fares rather well under Scharnhorst's scrutiny with one minor
> exception. Livy once told her daughter Susy that the letters Clemens sent
> her during their courtship were "the loveliest love letters that were ever
> written." Scharnhorst calls that "a hyperbolic statement that demonstrates
> her own facility for fiction" (474).
>
>
> Scharnhorst challenges and often corrects other biographers on a variety of
> subjects. Among them are: Robert E. Weir and Andrew Levy regarding
> Clemens's progressive thinking; Shelley Fisher Fishkin regarding what
> Scharnhorst defines as a mistake of "presentism"--"reinventing him as if he
> was our contemporary";  Andrew Hoffman regarding "silly speculation"
> related to possible homosexual behavior; James C. Austin and Albert E.
> Stone, Jr. regarding Clemens's early publications appearing on the East
> Coast; Donnelyn Curtis and Lawrence Berkove regarding Clemens's defense of
> the Chinese workers in California; Jim Zwick regarding Clemens's views on
> Hawaiian annexation; Albert Bigelow Paine regarding advice Clemens received
> from Anson Burlingame--which Scharnhorst feels rings hollow; Effie Mona
> Mack, Albert E. Stone, Jr., Andrew Hoffman, Joseph B. McCullough, Janice
> McIntire-Strasberg, Joe Jackson, and Ron Powers regarding Mark Twain's
> early newspaper report of the _Hornet_ disaster and its importance to his
> career; Franklin Walker, G. Ezra Dane, Charles Webster, and James Caron
> regarding their misidentification of an Albert Bierstadt painting at
> Yosemite that Clemens wrote about; Richard S. Lowry, Robert Regan, and
> Dewey Ganzel regarding their "tolerating" Clemens's plagiarism in reports
> from the _Quaker City_ tour of the Holy Land.
>
>
> One scholar Scharnhorst does not openly challenge--if only through
> omission--is Kevin Mac Donnell, who has advanced the theory that Clemens
> took his pen name "Mark Twain" from a cartoonish character in a sketch in
> _Vanity Fair_. When Mac Donnell published his theory in the _Mark Twain
> Journal_ (Spring/Fall 2012) it received national media attention that
> lasted through 2014. Ignoring the theory entirely, Scharnhorst sticks to
> his own theory that the "Mark Twain" pseudonym originated when Clemens
> charged his Nevada bar tabs--two marks for two drinks. That theory,
> however, has been discredited. In January 2015 James Caron reported to the
> Mark Twain Forum his discovery of a newspaper report that divulged the
> bar-tab story originated with the Nevada journalist Alfred Doten who told
> it for entertainment purposes to other reporters who never knew Clemens.
>
>
> Much misinformation regarding Clemens originated from the "social media" of
> the nineteenth century in the form of "news" written by local reporters
> across Nevada and California who baited, hoaxed, bullied, and practiced
> character assassination with one another with accusations of alcohol
> abusing, fornicating, and suffering from venereal diseases. Such reports
> are at the heart of Scharnhorst's theory that a sexually active Clemens
> contracted venereal disease. When a rival newspaper reporter for the San
> Francisco _Bulletin_ scolded Clemens for coming from the Chinatown
> district, Scharnhorst declares "There was no good reason for a white male
> to frequent Chinatown except to patronize a bar or brothel" (206).
> Scharnhorst concedes that evidence for Clemens's having contracted a
> venereal disease is circumstantial. However, he reminds readers of that
> possibility several times throughout the book whenever Clemens reported he
> suffered from a cold or other ailment (207, 302, 369).
>
>
> Other subjects on which Scharnhorst differs from previous scholars include
> one regarding Clemens's father, John Marshall Clemens. Both Paine and
> Clemens himself told the story of how the family's misfortunes required the
> elder Clemens to sell a slave named Charley in January 1842. Scharnhorst
> repeats the story as have other recent biographers. However, in 1989 Mark
> Twain Project editors Dahlia Armon and Walter Blair cautioned that a close
> reading of Clemens's letter to his wife Jane suggested that Charley was not
> a slave, but a horse (_Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians_, pp.
> 277-78.)
>
>
> Another event that has inspired differing interpretations surrounds the
> trip Clemens made in 1854 to Muscatine, Iowa, carrying a pistol to his
> brother Orion's home. Scharnhorst again follows Paine's interpretation that
> Sam carried the pistol without any real intent to harm Orion. However, in
> _Mark Twain and Orion Clemens_ (2003) Philip Fanning believes Clemens's
> intent was homicidal and supports his theory with a 1901 letter Clemens
> wrote to his friend Joseph Twichell wherein he confessed, "I bought a
> revolver once and travelled twelve hundred miles to kill a man" (Fanning,
> p. 37).
>
>
> While a number of Scharnhorst's theories are open to lively debate, small
> errors do creep in. For example, a photo of Clemens holding a typestick is
> described as Clemens holding a "typecase," which is a piece of furniture
> (47); Clemens contributed only one article to _American Courier_ in 1852,
> not "a pair," (64);  _The Celebrated Jumping Frog_ sold only about 4,000
> copies in two years, not 14,000 (386). A number of photos are credited to
> the author's collection when originals of these photos are owned by
> archives elsewhere. One major error is the statement that during the
> _Quaker City_ excursion and Clemens's visit to Spain in the company of
> fellow passengers Julia Newell and Reeves Jackson, "he recorded almost
> nothing about this week" (434). Scharnhorst coyly observes that Clemens did
> not mention sleeping arrangements and speculates that "Sam preferred
> discretion to disclosure" because fellow travelers Newell and Jackson, a
> married man, had fallen in love. Clemens, in fact, did write a chapter on
> Spain that was eventually edited out of _The Innocents Abroad_. The
> forty-three page manuscript is in the Vassar College Special Collections.
> It is a lively account of some Spanish misadventures and perhaps will be
> included in a University of California Works edition of _The Innocents
> Abroad_ at some future date.
>
>
> Much of the welcome new material presented in this volume has been
> unearthed from historical newspaper files that continue to flood into
> internet databases. The availability of new data serves to supplement,
> confirm and revise what has been previously written or theorized, and
> Scharnhorst makes much use of it by quoting newspaper reviews of Clemens's
> books and lectures. The book features extensive reference notes, a massive
> bibliography of print sources and a comprehensive index. Although
> Scharnhorst comments, "I cannot overstate the importance of the new
> technology in revolutionizing literary studies" (xxvii), he lists no
> internet resources in his bibliography. Whether or not one agrees with
> Scharnhorst's points of view, scholars and libraries will do well to add
> this one to their bookshelves as a well-written challenge to previous
> scholarship that should not be overlooked.
>



-- 
John Muller
202.236.3413
Capital Community News l Greater Greater Washington l Washington Syndicate

*Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C: The Lion of Anacostia
<http://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Douglass-Washington-D-c-Anacostia/dp/1609495772/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=H42HP4SBZ8OA&coliid=I34OMAR1SV8L9G>*
[The
History Press, 2012]  Winner of 2013 DC READS
Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent
<http://amzn.to/19PzIFd> [The History Press, 2013]