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.


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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 This review may not be published or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.