My favorite non-academic Mark Twain essay is Gary Scharnhorst's "The Impossibility of Knowing MT," published in the Paris Review. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/01/09/impossibility-knowing-mark-twain/. It's become the Intro to Vol 1 of his three volume bio of Twain, but it stands nicely on its own as an essay. And btw I recently published "Mark Twain, the World, and Me," ( U Alabama P, 2020), a collections of interlocked essays that combine memoir, biography, travelogue, and Twain studies. It's aimed not at the academy but at general readers. All best, --susan harris Susan K. Harris ________________________________________ From: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Matthew Seybold <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, June 26, 2020 12:33 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Non-academic essays on C19 literature/ MT? After seeing Desiree’s message yesterday, I started thinking about her question related to our site, so Hal’s message this morning was the extra nudge I needed. Of all the posts we’ve made since October 2016, here is a list of the 25 most popular accessible, non-academic essays: https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarktwainstudies.com%2Fneed-some-summer-reading-here-are-the-most-popular-essays-from-our-first-four-years%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cskh5%40KU.EDU%7Ce7b3504f344c42bfccef08d819f7c158%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637287899175948026&sdata=h51gVPZXav1zn0sZUHuXXKJLIJjKjC%2BO3AICN9oFHG8%3D&reserved=0 <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarktwainstudies.com%2Fneed-some-summer-reading-here-are-the-most-popular-essays-from-our-first-four-years%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cskh5%40KU.EDU%7Ce7b3504f344c42bfccef08d819f7c158%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637287899175958018&sdata=A4tOC0r%2B8iJ3bSPLFzs%2Fa7qv0nD7Ufk7684LLrOi6Go%3D&reserved=0> Popularity, of course, isn’t the sole metric of whether something is good. There’s a lot of stuff we’ve published which I think is worth of a much larger audience. Director Lemak has created an index of all the creative and critical writing the site has produced (at least up to March of this year): https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarktwainstudies.com%2Fpost-index%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cskh5%40KU.EDU%7Ce7b3504f344c42bfccef08d819f7c158%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637287899175958018&sdata=4NSTPKn6OMnb%2Bf5x8VGDyKciYkXHNRcz757Ua6zKehM%3D&reserved=0 <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarktwainstudies.com%2Fpost-index%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cskh5%40KU.EDU%7Ce7b3504f344c42bfccef08d819f7c158%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637287899175958018&sdata=4NSTPKn6OMnb%2Bf5x8VGDyKciYkXHNRcz757Ua6zKehM%3D&reserved=0> *************** Matt Seybold Assistant Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies Elmira College Editor, MarkTwainStudies.org MattSeybold.com
