Barbara.  So much appreciate your extensive knowledge and fact
you share it.  THANKS
Arianne Laidlaw


On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 8:56 AM, Barbara Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> The use of the solar eclipse to prove a claim to supernatural power
> was not a new concept when Twain wrote CY.  In the Iowa/California
> edition of the WORKS OF MARK TWAIN, edited by Bernard Stein, (p. 553)
> Stein points the reader to THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER
> COLUMBUS, Book 16, chapter 3 by Washington Irving.  (Columbus
> exploited an eclipse to get natives to procure supplies for him.)
> Clemens owned a set of these books in the 1880s.
>
> Louis J. Budd in MARK TWAIN: SOCIAL PHILOSPHER, p. 134 suggests H.
> Rider Haggard's KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1885) as an inspiration.
> Haggard's book got further publicity from an argument over whether an
> eclipse that its heroes exploited was astronomically on time.
>
> Howard Baetzhold in MARK TWAIN AND JOHN BULL (P. 346-347) discusses
> the possible influence of THE PRAIRIE FLOWER (1849) by Emerson
> Bennett. In that book, the heroine "invokes" an eclipse to insure her
> safety.  Baetzhold suggests Twain may have seen the stage production
> of THE PRAIRIE FLOWER during the 1870-71 season at the Bowery Theatre.
>
> The eclipse concept, without regard to historical accuracy, was not a
> new plot device when Mark Twain wrote CY.
>



-- 
Arianne Laidlaw A '58