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