The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by Kevin Mac
Donnell.

~~~~~

BOOK REVIEW

_Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews_. Edited by Gary Scharnhorst.
University of Alabama Press, 2006. Pp. 719. 22 illus. 6 x 9. ISBN
0-8173-1522-5. $75.00 cloth.

Many books reviewed on the Mark Twain Forum are available at discounted
prices from the Twain Web Bookstore. 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:
Kevin Mac Donnell

Copyright © 2007 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.

Mark Twain speaks to us in five voices. His written works are his primary
and most familiar voice. His collected letters are his second voice,
filling in the days and hours of his biography, reflecting his shifting
moods, his revolving enthusiasms, and evolving relationships. His third
voice is echoed in the many speeches that have come down to us only in
printed form, and though less familiar to general readers, they are often
quoted. His fourth voice, virtually unknown to general readers but familiar
to scholars, are his annotations in the many books that survive from his
personal library, often extensive and insightful, and frequently written as
if he knew posterity would be peeking over his shoulder some day. His fifth
voice is the interview. Fewer than seventy-five of his nearly 300 known
interviews have ever been reprinted from the original newspapers and
magazines where they first appeared during his lifetime, making them the
least accessible and most neglected of Mark Twain's five voices.

This unfortunate problem has been elegantly remedied by Gary Scharnhorst's
exhaustive one-volume compilation of 258 of Mark Twain's interviews.
Expanding on the pioneering work of Louis J. Budd, Scharnhorst's work is a
welcome addition to Mark Twain studies. As a journalistic genre, the
interview format with its conversational questions and answers was a fairly
new phenomenon at the beginning of Mark Twain's career, and very few
American authors before Mark Twain were formally interviewed. A combined
compilation of the known interviews of Poe, Melville, Whitman, Emerson,
Thoreau, Cooper, Irving, Howells, Whittier, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, and
Dickinson would probably not fill a volume half the size of Twain's
collected interviews. In fact, no other nineteenth century author could be
said to speak to modern readers in this fifth voice.

Starting in 1871, these interviews span nearly the whole of Twain's career,
although more than 200 of them date from the last fifteen years of his
life. Twain was most accessible to the press during his travels, with the
result that the bulk of the interviews cluster around the times when he was
on the road during lecture tours--the reading tour with George W. Cable in
1884-85, his world tour of 1895-96, his time in England and Germany from
1897-1900, his last visit to Hannibal in 1902, and his triumphant visit to
England in 1907. The very last known interview was conducted by a woman who
all but broke into the Bermuda home where Twain was staying in the last
months of his life.

Read in chronological order, these interviews trace Mark Twain's maturation
as a writer and story-teller, reveal his growing mastery and manipulation
of his celebrity persona, expose his sometimes subtle and sometimes
shameless self-promotion, provide glimpses into his family and professional
relationships, and chronicle his candid views on people and topics not
always reflected in his other voices. As valuable as his own words are the
varied reactions of the interviewers themselves. In a few interviews, but
only a few, Twain lets slip an unguarded comment or an interviewer spots
some telling detail. In those moments, lucky readers come as close as is
possible to experiencing what it would have been like to sit down, light a
smoke, and chat with Mark Twain in private conversation.

Reading chronologically, readers can also watch Mark Twain's physical
appearance evolve. His white summer suit first shows up in August of 1876,
a bit earlier than many readers might expect (interview no. 4), his hair
first attracts notice in 1879 (no. 11), and is described as turning white
by November, 1895 (no. 99). His twinkling blue eyes repeatedly draw comment
(nos. 92 and 200 are good examples), and his delicate "baby"-like skin gets
noticed too (no. 200). Twain's drawl evolves in some curious ways. After
being the subject of constant commentary by American reporters from the
1870s through the early 1890s, his drawl draws no notice from reporters in
London and Germany in the late 1890s, until his very last London interview
in October 1900 (no. 132). Surely, foreign reporters would have encountered
enough Americans to have noticed Twain's distinctive drawl as something
unusual. Sure enough, by the time he arrives in Hannibal in 1902, his
famously long slow drawl gets noticed again (no. 158) and was soon causing
some American reporters to misspell place names and proper names because of
Twain's habit of swallowing second syllables and slurring his vowels.

Readers will be delighted with the vivid portraits painted by some
interviewers of Mark Twain in familiar places like Hartford (no. 47) or
Quarry Farm (no. 44) or Bermuda (no. 258). A number of the interviewers are
worthy of note themselves. Rudyard Kipling is probably the most famous of
Twain's interviewers (no. 50), but other authors like Robert Bridges,
Robert Barr, George Townsend (aka "Gath"), and Edward Bok also interviewed
him. Even Twain's own nephew, Samuel Moffett, conducted one interview (no.
80) and future Pulitzer Prize winner Lucius "Lute" Pease conducted two (no.
73 and 76).

Thumbing through more than 700 pages, timid readers may opt instead to make
use of the excellent index to sample only those interviews that touch on
topics of special interest like race, copyright, smoking, drinking,
fashion, nudity, religion, lecturing, female suffrage, bicycles, exercise,
humor, and euchre. Although not specifically included as a topic in the
index, a number of Mark Twain's interviews shed new light on his reading
habits (nos. 14, 28, 44, 48, 58, 84, 85, 86, 87, 90, 109, and 144). Twain
constantly mentions the books, authors, and subjects he is reading at the
moment and never hesitates to render a verdict on them.

Other topics not specifically indexed include Mark Twain's writing habits
and his theories on the creative process (nos. 17, 53, 64, 85, 88, 103,
122, 127, 144, 152, 171, and 220). His comment that _Huckleberry Finn_ was
easier to write than _The Prince and the Pauper_ or _Tom Sawyer_ may
surprise many. In at least three interviews (nos. 64, 88, 152) he claims
_Huckleberry Finn_ as his own favorite among his writings. In another
interview (no. 17) he claims he does not revise his writings, and in
another (no. 53) he plays cylinder recordings of his own dictations for a
reporter.

Memorable moments abound in Twain's encounters with interviewers. One
reporter sneaked backstage during the Twain-Cable tour and interviewed Mark
Twain and George W. Cable in snatches as they took turns running back and
forth from the stage between their performances (no. 38). Another reporter
provides an amusing account of how Twain was detained as he boarded the
first-class section of a steamer because his umbrella did not look as nice
as the umbrellas carried by other first-class passengers (no. 57). It will
shock some to hear Twain endorsing censorship through copyright laws (no.
113), or calling William Dean Howells an "ass," even if in jest (no. 200).
Some readers may be upset to know that Twain uses the word "nigger" in an
interview in 1896, but will be relieved to see that in context he is
clearly using it to reflect the thinking of bigots, using the word "negro"
himself in the very same sentence (no. 118). In another interview (no. 138)
Twain attends his first college football game (Yale-Princeton) and roots
for the losing team (Princeton).

Another interview (no. 163) is memorable for Mark Twain's description of
how he and Howells behaved like peeping Toms when they spotted a pretty
girl through an alley window in Boston--an incident that "thrilled"
Howells--both of them first pausing to gaze, then walking further along,
and then going back for a "good long, lingering look." In some interviews
Twain holds his emotions in check and chooses his words carefully, but at
other times the public persona melts away and Sam Clemens emerges with
tears flowing at the mention of his Hartford home (no. 196) and again in
1907 when he recalls his bankruptcy (no. 216). But when the subject of Bret
Harte comes up, Twain does not contain himself and later must modify his
careless comments (no. 84 and 88). By the time readers finish the first
one-hundred interviews they will recognize Twain's favorite jokes, sound
bites, and stock responses to frequent loaded questions like "What do you
think of our fair city Mr. Twain?" Interview no. 100 is notable for Twain's
discourse on what makes American humor distinct from humor in other
countries.

It is doubtful many readers will notice the absence of any interviews, but
Scharnhorst does exclude certain interviews, for the most part with good
reason, as he explains in his introduction. Among the exclusions are
self-interviews which more properly belong among Twain's creative writings
and most interviews not published until long after they occurred, thereby
casting doubt on their veracity. Interviews that contain no direct quotes
of Twain's words are excluded, although interview no. 2 is a reasonable
exception to this rule, perhaps because it is one of the scarce very early
interviews.

Scharnhorst also excludes imaginery interviews concocted from snippets of
Mark Twain's writings, and interviews repudiated as inaccurate or bogus by
Twain himself. But readers will wish Scharnhorst had made at least one
important exception to this rule. Scharnhorst publishes Twain's
"repudiation" of his interview with Elinor Glyn (no. 246), but Twain's
protestations hardly sound like a whole-hearted repudiation. Twain
expresses contempt that Glyn had published what he considered to be a
private conversation, and seems especially irked that Glyn reported his
conversation in much weaker language than he had actually used. He confirms
that she had conveyed the substance of his opinions on her novel about
adultery, but seems most upset that she left out his judgment that it told
a "sort of truth" that should not be published. Readers are teased with
Twain's tantalizing "repudiation" and can only imagine what Glyn's
watered-down text of the original interview actually said, even though Glyn
published it herself in 1907.

Scharnhorst chops off the end of an interview (no. 62) because Twain wrote
a letter repudiating only the end of that interview. This saves a little
space, but having the rest of that interview along with Twain's letter of
repudiation would have allowed readers to judge whether Twain's repudiation
should be taken at face value.

To save space and duplication, Scharnhorst also excludes "duplicate"
interviews when several reporters left accounts of a single interview
session. When Mark Twain stepped onto the street or off a boat he was often
surrounded by a gaggle of reporters, each of whom filed slightly different
accounts of what was seen and said. In these instances Scharnhorst prints
what appears to be the fullest or most accurate account, followed by
extracts of Twain's own words from the other reporters' accounts, but it is
still a loss not to have the impressions of the other reporters. This was
certainly a difficult editorial problem with no perfect solution, but
sometimes the reactions of reporters are as interesting as Twain's own
words.

Interviews originally published in translation are also excluded since an
interview given in English, published in German, and then translated back
into English might be less than reliable (those who disagree should read
Mark Twain's translation of his jumping frog story). Happily, a list of the
twelve interviews excluded for this reason is included in the appendix. But
were there only twelve such interviews? In Carl Dolmetsch's _Our Famous
Guest_ (p. 34) it is reported that Twain was interviewed nine times during
his first two weeks in Vienna in October 1897, but only two interviews from
that time and place appear in the appendix. Also, the appendix would be
more useful if it included citations for all of the excluded interviews,
regardless of the reasons for exclusion.

One interview with some excluded text warrants mention for the benefit of
future readers of this volume, especially scholars. Interview no. 178
appears with a citation to _The New York Times_, April 10, 1904, but the
text provided is the severely abridged text that appears in Paul Fatout's
_Mark Twain Speaks for Himself_, (pp. 189-91), a source not listed in
Scharnhorst's list of sources. The complete _New York Times_ text appears
in Scharnhorst's "Mark Twains Interviews: Supplement One" in _American
Literary Realism_ (Spring, 2007) with additional footnotes. Also included
in the Spring 2007 _ALR_ are seven interviews that were unknown at the time
Scharnhorst's book went to press. Readers of _Mark Twain: The Complete
Interviews_ will want to keep a copy of Scharnhorst's supplement close at
hand.

Another exclusion not obvious to most readers are the photographs and line
drawings that often accompanied Mark Twain's interviews when they first
appeared in magazines and newspapers. Space was no doubt at a premium in
this massive compilation, and the illustrations that are provided are
complementary to the text, but readers cannot be blamed for wanting more.
Twain's interview just after his return to New York in 1900 was originally
illustrated with several candid photographs that are a topic of amusing
conversation between Twain and the reporter as the photographer follows
them around in the street during the interview (no. 137). Robert Barr's
interview with Mark Twain in 1892 is another example of an interview that
was illustrated with seldom-seen images of Twain (no. 38).

In a book of this size and scope, footnoting problems are almost a
certainty, but they are still an annoyance. Many of the interviews have
footnotes that are lengthier than the interviews, and these abundant
footnotes are welcome, and are extremely informative. But inconsistent
footnotes may remind readers of the characters in _Huckleberry Finn_, who
spoke in different dialects. Readers want footnotes to succeed in "talking
alike." To cite just a few examples, Twain's secretary, Isabel Lyon, is
repeatedly footnoted in many interviews, even when it is obvious who she
is, but in one interview (no. 248) she is not footnoted at all even though
her identity is not immediately obvious from the context of that particular
interview. In another interview (no. 201) Twain visits for five minutes
with the President of the United States but readers are not told who was
President in December 1906 when this visit took place. But this same
President, known for walking softly and carrying a big stick, is identified
in the previous interview (no. 200). Reporter "Lute" Pease gets cited as
"Lute" (no. 73) and "Luke" (no. 76) and readers could be excused for
assuming "Lute" is a misprint, but readers would be wrong. Offsetting this
spelling error, however, Twain's butler gets his name spelled correctly:
Claude Joseph Beuchotte. The misspelling of Claude's name began with no
less a distinguished Twain scholar than Hamlin Hill and the tradition has
been unwittingly carried on by several others, but not by Scharnhorst.

The most frustrating feature of some of the footnotes are dead-end
"see"-references (nos. 62, 77, 103, etc.), where readers are referred to a
footnote elsewhere in the text, only to discover that it does not exist or
is not to be found where it was said to be. Some tedious last-minute
copy-editing would have avoided this glitch. There are very few factual
errors in the footnotes, but a pair of minor ones should be mentioned only
because they pertain to Mark Twain's own writings. In interview no. 238,
footnote 8 describes _Christian Science_ as a two-volume work; that book
was a single volume. In footnote 10 from the same interview, _Following the
Equator_ is cited as a source of quotes similar to those printed in the
text, with no mention that the quotes printed in the text are from _English
As She Is Taught_. Tabulations of these footnote flaws are merely the
required caveats and quibbles that must be imposed on any major scholarly
edition that will be relied upon as a standard text for years to come.
Scharnhorst is fastidious in crediting to Louis J. Budd those footnotes
copied from Budd's trail-blazing work on Twain's interviews, and
Scharnhorst's own footnotes are informative and plentiful. The
responsibility of footnoting 258 interviews spread out over more than 700
pages was undoubtedly daunting. The mere thought of such a burden leaves
this reviewer with weak knees.

Weighing in at just over three pounds, and with just an ounce of flaws,
this brick of a book is a major structural support in the solid wall of
Twain's writings. It takes its place alongside _Mark Twain Speaking_
(Twain's speeches, edited by Paul Fatout) and the scholarly editions of
Twain's writings prepared by the editors at Berkeley and Iowa.
Scharnhorst's edition not only adds to the growing mass of Twain's
writings, but by bringing nearly all of Twain's interviews into a handy
single volume it presents a fresh and previously unfamiliar voice from a
great American author, full-throated, booming, and a boon to Mark Twain
scholars and readers who choose to listen.

_____

My apologies for the long delay in posting this review; health problems
resulting from a dog attack in the fall of 2006 which necessitated surgery
prevented my finishing the review earlier. Based upon everything Mark Twain
ever said about cats, he would probably agree with this reviewer that they
are more conducive to writing than dogs. - Kevin Mac Donnell.