My Kindle has a package of 300 works by Mark Twain, which is not as good  
for reading individual pieces as it is for word searches. Punching in  
"Christmas" for a search, I find about 44 hits. There are four mentions in the  
2010 Autobiography, although they aren't all mentions by Clemens.  I  haven't 
explored many of them, but clearly he did write a bit about Christmas. 
And an early Merry Christmas to everyone.  BobS
 
 
In a message dated 11/30/2011 3:02:31 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

folks,  deep into the Christmas tales of Dickens this week and next; thought
I'd  treat myself to another look and see how the students like (or  
dislike)
them.
Here's just a few rambling questions, in case any of you  are in a holiday
mood and feel like chatting:

I wonder how MT  thought of Dickens as a novelist?  I don't have a copy of
Alan's book  handy (sure wish the new edition of MT'sL would appear, are you
listening  Prof. Gribben?).

I wonder what he might have thought of those old  Christmas tales -- and
also, when or if MT ever really wrote much about  Christmas, or used it much
as a setting?

I also was interested in  this little review MT wrote of his visit to hear
CD read, in NYC,  1868:

"He read David Copperfield. He is a bad reader, in one sense --  because he
does not enunciate his words sharply and distinctly -- he does  not cut the
syllables cleanly, and therefore many and many of them fell  dead before
they reached our part of the house. [I say "our" because I am  proud to
observe that there was a beautiful young lady with me -- a  highly
respectable young white woman.]"

(from a nice website:   charlesdickenspage.com/twain_on_dickens.html;  is
this published in a  recent edition somewhere?  not really sure about that .
. .  .)

For most of the 60s, evidently, CD read those Christmas tales in  public
readings.  But the thing that really caught my eye:  why  did he call her a
"white" woman?  I don't really get the reason for  emphasizing that -- as if
he would be with an African American?  or am  I just missing something with
that?

Anyway;  if anyone has  something to say about MT and Christmas, or CD,  I'm
interested!


thanks, --Hal B.




--  
Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Professor of English
Saint Louis  University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795  (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>