Hal, you are right. In 2010 the Wall Street Journal reported that HF was written in Hartford; Elmira justifiably dissented and we asked Vic Fischer to settle once and for all what was written where; below is his characteristically thorough response. -- best, Steve
P.S. I've found no evidence he ever called the large balcony outside his billiard room/study "The Texas Deck," though it's often called that; and as far as I know (based on Clara's 1950s sketches, in turn based on her memory of the house) he worked on a table in the corner of in the billiard room, not outside it.
P.P.S. All this said, it's great that the Hartford House is tops on the USA Today list -- in fact, as we bruit to the skies, it made the National Geographic Top 10 historic houses list along with such places as Blenheim Palace, Tolstoy's house and Monet's house at Giverny!
From Vic:
Clemens definitely worked on Huckleberry Finn and The Prince and the Pauper in both places.
Here's time and and place for Huck composition:
1876: July through September, chapters 1 through 12½ and 15 through 18½, Quarry Farm [MS1a]
1880: March through mid-June, chapters 18½ through 21, Hartford [MS1b]
1883: mid-June through 1 September, chapters 12½ through 14 and chapters 22 through 43, Quarry Farm. [MS2] (He had the stages typed in 1882 and 1883 and continued to make revisions on his typescripts in Hartford.)
Supporting evidence can be found in the introduction to our 2003 scholarly edition, pp. 674 ff, 682 ff, 692 ff; all summed up in a chart on p. 714. The introduction is also online at MTPO: http://marktwainproject.org
Here's time and place for Prince composition:
1877 and 1878: beginning after September 1877 and working until sometime in February 1878, 11 chapters, Hartford.
1880: January to March, chapters through 17, Hartford. [in March to June, Clemens mostly switched to Huck]
1880: June through September, chapters 18 through Conclusion (chapter 34), Quarry Farm.
Supporting evidence can be found in our 1979 scholarly edition, pp. 3-7 (and in the 2003 Huck Finn).
________________________________________
From: Mark Twain Forum [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Hal Bush [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 6:10 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 10 great historical sites in USA: check out #1!
nice story:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/10greatplaces/2014/07/25/=
10-best-us-history-sites/13105615/
but Burns does say this about the MT house:
The home's Texas Deck porch is where Twain wrote much of *Huckleberry Finn*
=E2=80=93 not in Hannibal, Mo., he notes.
Not sure why anyone would think it was written in Hannibal; but then
again, I guess I think of it as mainly written in Elmira. I could try to
check this out on my own, but am I wrong to think most of AHF was written
in NY, not CN??
--Hal B.
--=20
Prof. Harold K. Bush
Professor of English
3800 Lindell
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO 63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>
|
