The following is the text of an article published in the London Sunday
Times this summer.  It is posted with the kind permission of the author
who has just returned from his honeymoon.  I thought it might be of
interest to some members of the list.
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_Twain's lost words give new life to Huck Finn_
Published in 'The Sunday Times', June 18, 1995.
By Geordie Greig, Literary Editor.

THERE is a new twist to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Academics have been amazed by the revelation of a new chapter
in the life of the ragamuffin hero of one of America's
greatest novels.

A missing 15-page section from Mark Twain's most famous work,
discovered in a Hollywood attic, will be published in The New
Yorker magazine tomorrow.  "It is as if a new act was found
for King Lear or Hamlet," said Victor Boyno, professor of
English and American literature at the State University of
New York in Buffalo.

It will provide a gold mine for literary scholars, who have
pored over the work since it was first published in 1884.
"This is a key book in American literature, Twain's finest.
The publication of unseen passages will start a flood of new
criticism and studies." said Boyno.

Twain's full tale came to light when an original manuscript -
- worth about UKP1m -- turned up after lying hidden for more
than 100 years.  It was discovered in a trunk in a Hollywood
attic, only to remain out of public gaze for a further five
years during an ownership dispute.

Soon after finishing the book, the author donated the
manuscript to a library in Buffalo, New York, at the request
of James Fraser Gluck, a local lawyer.  However, only the
second half arrived; the first 665 pages went missing and
were presumed by Twain to have been mistakenly destroyed.
These hand-written pages remained hidden until Gluck's
granddaughter, a 62-year-old librarian, discovered them by
chance in her attic.  The Gluck family and the library fought
over the ownership, a battle resolved with an agreement that
the papers should stay in the library and all profits be
shared.

Now the start and finish of the pen-and-ink manuscript are
back together for the first time since Twain sent them out.
The full, unedited version of a book that has already sold
20m copies can finally be seen.

The new episode in Huck Finn's life is a surreal extract
involving a conversation about ghosts between him and his
companion Jim, the runaway black slave.

"Did you ever see a ghost, Jim?"
"Has I ever seed a ghos'? Well I reckon I has."
"O, tell me about it, Jim -- tell me about it."

And so Huck prompts an eerie tale from Jim in Southern
dialect about a night he spent in a dissecting room with Jim'
s young master who was training to be a doctor.  Jim was
asked to prepare a naked, bearded corpse for dissection.
During this macabre process, he lifted the corpse but was
horrified to see its eyes open.  The corpse collapsed on top
of him and the terrified slave grappled his way free,
believing it had come to life.

The passage, presumed edited out of chapter nine by Twain,
adds a colourful new episode to when Huck is hiding in a cave
on Jackson's Island in the Mississippi after escaping from
his drunken Pap by faking his own death.
More than any other American novel, the book is viewed as the
nation's finest.  "All modern American literature comes from
one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn," Ernest
Hemingway once said.

Speculation has already started over reasons behind the
deletion of the episodes, although the novel was heavily
revised during the eight years Twain worked on it.  Some
suspect that Twain's wife Olivia, a rather prim woman,
thought the excised passage too vulgar in its description of
Jim's encounter with the corpse.

In a prior instance of censorship, Twain once came home
delighted with a new short story called The Undertaker's Love
Story and, as was his habit, read it aloud to his family.
Olivia was said to have remarked "Youth, let's take a walk"
and the result of their talk was that the story was not
published in his lifetime.

"There is a definite possibility it was all just too much for
his wife, but we do not know for certain the reason Twain
left passages out of his book," said Hal Espen, a senior
editor at The New Yorker, who edited Twain's new work.  There
are already 13 corpses in Huckleberry Finn and 34 people die.
The renewed interest would have delighted Twain, who was born
Samuel Langhorne Clemens but always went by his nom de plume.
His folksy tales, often set in the Mississippi delta where he
was raised, delighted readers and made Twain a massive
celebrity in his lifetime. But not everyone shared
Hemingway's view.  Huck Finn was ridiculed by the literary
establishment when published for its rustic dialect.  More
recently, its use of the word "nigger" fell foul of the
political correctness lobby, and the novel was banned from
schools and libraries.

The new passage from chapter nine is the only time in the
book Twain mentioned the past life of Jim before he joined up
with Huck.  His undignified task of preparing a corpse for
dissection is a funny episode, but it is also a stark
reminder of blacks' low status at the time.
=============================================================
Date:         Sat, 30 Dec 1995 00:38:37 -0500
Reply-To:     Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From:         [log in to unmask]
Subject:      Re: LETTERS FROM THE EARTH

In a message dated 95-12-26 15:40:40 EST, you write:

>I enjoy LETTERS FROM THE EARTH. However, I believe the darkest thing Twain
>ever wrote was THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, aka THE CHRONICLE OF YOUNG SATAN or
>NO. 44.  The last page, in particular, is extremely dark.  Anyone familiar
>with this one?

I read the Mysterious Stranger once, and wuld probably never read it again.
 It was like he had just been really, really, depressed, and needed to place
his thoughts on paper.  As a writer, I can understand this.  Hoever, this
work was published after his death, and I wonder if he really wanted it
published.  I don't think of it as typical of Twain's writings.

However, another "dark" work, "What is Man?", is one of my favorite Twain
pieces.  Coincidentally, it was published in his lifetime (I think).  Makes
you wonder, dosen't it?

Rob McMonigal