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From:
Justine Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 29 May 1994 15:56:35 PDT
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Familiar with Twain's Joan of Arc?! - It was the work that forced me to
become familiar with the Library of Congress at an impressionable young
teenage. This  was the only place I could imagine finding the original
French transcripts of her trials, and I had to see them because I was
sure Twain must have made up the stirring quotations he used. - What a
thrill to find them in the trial transcript! - (I concluded that Twain
was an amazing writer and that the Library of Congress was a cool
place). Why is Twain's Joan so little known? Surely Shaw's Joan is more
memorable, briefer as a reading assignment, and not nearly so
sentimental.Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are so firmly planted on reading
lists that many of those who don't take to them (I didn't), & not
fortunate enough to stumble on to the Connecticut Yankee, may not
explore much further. And then, you have to be lucky: I almost didn't
read it myself; most of the stuff on Joan of Arc was so boring, why go
after this "minor work"?  (Every library seems to have Tom and Huck;
Joan is harder to find). -

Justine Roberts
Mill Valley, CA

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