The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by R. Kent
Rasmussen.

~~~~~

BOOK REVIEW

 _Mark Twain on Potholes and Politics: Letters to the Editor_. Edited by
Gary Scharnhorst. University of Missouri Press, 2014. Pp.-xvi, 208.
Hardcover $35.00. ISBN 978-0-8262-2046-2

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 R. Kent Rasmussen.

Copyright © 2015 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.


Over the past decade, Gary Scharnhorst has demonstrated a marvelous knack
for assembling useful books out of material by and about Mark Twain that is
fascinating and illuminating but generally overlooked. In 2006, he
published _Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews_, a long-needed collection
of 258 articles, most of which had not seen in print since their original
publication. That stout volume drew some mild complaints because of the
redundancy of many interviews, but Scharnhorst disarmed such critiques
three years later with the perhaps ironically titled _Mainly the Truth:
Interviews with Mark Twain_, a condensed collection half as long as the
earlier book.


In 2010, Scharnhorst published a profoundly different--but equally
welcome--collection, _Twain in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of
His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family,
Friends, and Associates_. That compelling volume brought together nearly
one hundred extracts written by people who knew Mark Twain personally.
Although most of its items were already familiar to Mark Twain scholars,
the book nevertheless made a valuable contribution by assembling widely
scattered texts under one cover.


Scharnhorst's third collection is of yet another type, and--like its
predecessors--is equally welcome. _Mark Twain on Potholes and Politics_
contains 101 letters that Mark Twain wrote to newspapers and other
publications. With its letters numbered and arranged in chronological
order, it opens with an 1866 letter to the _San Francisco Examiner_ about a
corrupt police chief and concludes with a March 1910 note to the _New York
Evening Journal_ reporting that "while I am not ruggedly well, I am not ill
enough to excite an undertaker." The collection includes 15 letters from
1866-1869, 38 from the 1870s, 22 from the 1880s, 6 from the 1890s (when
Mark Twain was out of the United States most of the time), and 20 from the
first decade of the twentieth century.


It is unclear what part of the total number of newspaper letters Mark Twain
may have written Scharnhorst's 101 selections represent. Scharnhorst's
brief introduction says only that "Mark Twain addressed dozens of letters
to newspaper and magazine editors." "Dozens," however, somehow seems to
suggest a number smaller--not larger--than 101, and other letters are known
to exist.


In 1948, Arthur L. Vogelback published "Mark Twain: Newspaper Contributor"
in _American Literature_. According to Scharnhorst, it is "the only
scholarly article" about Mark Twain's letters to editors published up to
now. Vogelback's article contains extracts from four letters not in
Scharnhorst's book, even though the article covers only the years up to
1879 (a period accounting for just over half of Scharnhorst's letters). A
particularly surprising omission in Scharnhorst's book is Mark Twain's
November 20, 1872 letter to the _Boston Transcript_ concerning the heroism
he personally observed when the crew of the steamship _Batavia_ saved the
crew of another, wrecked ship. Already published in several other books,
that letter is significant as an example of Mark Twain's ability to move
other people to take action; in this case to bring tangible rewards to the
_Batavia_ sailors.


While it would have been helpful for Scharnhorst to say something more
concrete about the total number of newspaper letters Mark Twain may have
written, it also would have been good if he had explained how he selected
the letters he does use. The entire editorial apparatus of his book is
unusually skimpy for a volume published by a university press. There is no
explanation of exactly where the book's texts come from or how they were
edited. One might presume texts were transcribed directly from the original
newspapers, but if that is the case, why not simply say so? If it is not
the case, then some explanation is essential.


The majority of letters in this book should already be familiar to many
scholars, as most have been republished before, some multiple times. By
searching text strings on Google Books, I identified more than 60 letters
published in other modern books. (Because texts of books under copyright
are rarely complete on Google Books, I probably missed many other letters.)
At least 21 letters appear in University of California Press _Mark Twain's
Letters_ editions. Albert Bigelow Paine extracted at least four letters in
_Mark Twain: A Biography_ (1912) and put at least three in _Mark Twain's
Letters_ (1917). At least six appear in Charles Neider's _Mark Twain: Life
as I Find It_ (1961) and at least nine in Paul Fatout's _Mark Twain Speaks
for Himself_ (1978). Scharnhorst thanks the Mark Twain Papers and Project
for permitting him to use eight letters from manuscripts that "were either
unmailed or mailed and not published." Four of those letters have appeared
in previously published books, leaving four that appear in print for the
first time in Scharnhorst's book.


The fact that most of the letters in _Potholes and Politics_ have been
previously republished does not materially diminish the value of the book.
Having so many letters to editors collected in one volume makes it easier
both to find the individual letters and to gain a perspective on the nature
of Mark Twain's proclivity for writing to editors. Vogelback described Mark
Twain as "an incorrigible writer of letters to the press. Whenever he was
stirred--and he was easily stirred--by some happening, whenever his
sensibilities or opinions were outraged, he proceeded to give strong and
articulate vent to his feelings." Those remarks capture the essence of why
these letters are important: They present Mark Twain's thoughts at his most
spontaneous and unguarded moments. Scharnhorst is certainly right in saying
a great number of the letters are "hilarious" and that most readers should
"simply enjoy them," but he might have gone further in commenting on their
deeper significance. In a single, almost off-hand comment, he says, "At the
risk of making a substantive point ... I believe Twain learned in these
letters, by responding to various news reports and op-ed pieces, how to
write in a cacophony of voices." That is doubtless true, too, but it still
overlooks the impact of the letters on Mark Twain's contemporaries.


Throughout most of his long writing career Mark Twain was perceived by the
public and many critics as a "mere" humorist--a funny man, but not one
whose opinions on weighty matters needed to be taken seriously. This
despite that fact that all the while he kept up a vigorous and very public
correspondence with the press that clearly revealed--to anyone who troubled
to pay attention--that he had opinions worthy of being taken seriously. The
final paragraph of Vogelback's 1948 article summed up this point
poignantly: "These newspaper letters of Mark Twain's show the man's
extraordinary zest in the world about him. National affairs, shipwrecks,
crime and punishment, social manners, public causes--all were grist for his
mill. The letters display his early talents not only as humorist, but as a
skilled and serious writer who had worth-while things to say on the America
of his time."


Yes, many of Mark Twain's letters were both funny and frivolous, but the
extent of his serious interests can be seen in the range of issues his
newspaper letters address. These include capital punishment, censorship,
China's Boxer Rebellion, copyright law, France's occupation of Mexico,
government corruption, Hawaii's economy, imperialism, maritime safety, post
office inefficiency, public health, Russian despotism, temperance crusades,
trial by jury, wars, where to situate General Grant's tomb, and woman
suffrage. Not the usual stuff of mere humorists.


Scharnhorst's head notes and generally spare annotations help put many
letters in context, but one could wish he had gone further in that
direction, especially as Vogelback had demonstrated that the back stories
of some letters are as fascinating as the letters themselves. Moreover,
there is much to be said about how some readers resented Mark Twain's
efforts to be serious. For example, Vogelback devoted several pages to a
letter published in the March 10, 1873 _New York Tribune_ in which Mark
Twain satirically criticized petitions to save a convicted murderer named
Foster from execution and also threw in a shot at the jury system. The next
day's _Tribune_ published a letter from a reader who "suggested that it
would be well if clowns and actors, among which class he placed Twain,
would stick to their business of amusing the public and not meddle with
matters above their level ..." The letter writer was especially incensed by
Mark Twain's mixing "clemency touching capital crimes and sentimental
burlesque," but the writer's main point reflected what was evidently a
widely held view about Mark Twain: once a mere humorist, always a mere
humorist, regardless of evidence to the contrary. (Scharnhorst includes
Mark Twain's letter [pp. 62-63] but his brief postscript to it mistakenly
attributes the reader's letter to the newspaper's editors.)


An example of another missed opportunity to tell a fascinating back story
is Mark Twain's long letter of July 16, 1885 replying to a _Christian
Union_ article on parenting with suggestions based on his own and his
wife's experience as parents. Scharnhorst's head note merely describes the
letter as a response "to a hypothetical story about how to discipline a
child." I expect that Scharnhorst had not yet seen my own book _Dear Mark
Twain: Letters from His Readers_ (2013) when he wrote that note, as my book
contains two reader responses to Mark Twain's _Christian Union_ letter. One
of these, signed "Thomas Twain," is the vilest letter to Mark Twain I have
ever seen. When I first read it, I marveled that Mark Twain didn't jump to
track down its author so he could horsewhip him for what he had said about
Livy. Mark Twain's reaction was mild--presumably because he assumed that
the letter writer was the actual subject of the original _Christian Union_
article--and thus a non-hypothetical man whom his own letter had criticized
severely. (An alternative explanation of Mark Twain's mild response might
be that he failed fully to understand what Thomas Twain proposed to do to
Livy.)


If future scholars take up the subject of Mark Twain's newspaper letters in
depth, Scharnhorst's book will give them a strong start. For now, we can
still remain grateful to Scharnhorst for making the letters more accessible.


One final criticism must be leveled at the University of Missouri Press for
its woefully inadequate index. Readers turning to the index to find what
Mark Twain said on subjects such as "potholes" and "politics" or almost any
of the subjects enumerated above won't find entries for them. The index is
rich in listing personal names, titles of Mark Twain works, and a handful
of events, but is otherwise barren. The only generic terms it lists are
"capital punishment," "copyright," "lectures," "temperance," and "woman
suffrage." Readers looking for place names or other generic terms, are out
of luck. (P.S. For letters on potholes, see pages 96-98.)