Sounds like a fascinating presentation.? Did you end up publishing?? I would love to read it.? As to Cather's article, I loved it!? She gets down in the mud and starts slinging.? I thought I read a quote of Twain's where he praises Cather as one of America's greatest new writers.? Anyone familiar with this? Dustin Zima Quincy University ? -----Original Message----- From: Martin D. Zehr <[log in to unmask]> To: TWAIN-L <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wed, Apr 17, 2013 11:08 am Subject: Re: Twain and Willa Cather I used these quotes in a presentation I gave on Twain and Cather at the 200= 9 Elmira conference.=A0 Cather likely never appreciated Twain, although she= appeared to change her tune in later public statements, when it became app= arent that Twain was not a passing fad.=A0 In an 1897 editorial for The Hom= e Monthly, she states=A0 "I would rather sail on a raft down the Missouri a= gain with Huck Finn and Jim than go down the Nile in December or see Venice= from a gondola in May."=A0 If she had ever read Huck Finn she might not ha= ve referred to "sailing" a raft, and mistaking the Missouri for the Mississ= ippi has to be considered more than a minor faux pas for someone who spent = much of her childhood and adolescence in Red Cloud, Nebraska, on the Republ= ican River, a tributary of the Missouri.=A0 Later, in a 1913 interview, Cat= her opined "My own favorite writers?=A0 I've never changed in that respect = much since I was a girl at school.=A0 There were great ones I liked best then and still like-=A0 Mark Twain, Henry James and Sarah Orne Jewett."=0A= =0ACather also detested overtly political, satirical or muckraking writing,= preferring an "art for art's sake" orientation.=A0 Ironic because, for man= y years, as a writer and editor for McClure's magazine, she shared office s= pace with Ida Tarbell, whose writing was the impetus for the breakup of Joh= n D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil trust.=A0 Finally, although Cather is born = in 1873, a generation after Twain, there are traces of racism and anti-Semi= tism in her writing as late as 1940, in her novel, Sapphira and the Slave G= irl.=A0 =0A=0ACather was an invitee to Twain's 70th birthday celebration, o= ne of 170 guests, but was likely invited by Col. Harvey and Fred Duneka, lo= oking for new talent for Harpers.=A0 She later made a reference to a bedsid= e meeting with Twain in New York, but this is likely an "exaggeration," and= Twain, who made a favorable remark in 1909 of one of her poems, recorded b= y ABP in his biography, died two years before the publication of Cather's f= irst novel, Alexander's Bridge.=A0 The notion, proposed by some writers, th= at Twain influenced Cather's writing,=A0 seems to be a stretcher, to put it= mildly, and the 1895 comments, in which she also refers to Twain as a "bla= ckguard," "with limited mentality," likely represent the core of her views = of Twain.=0A=0AMartin Zehr=0A=0A=0A=0A=0A________________________________= =0A From: Dustin Zima <[log in to unmask]>=0ATo: [log in to unmask] =0ASent: Wed= nesday, April 17, 2013 8:59 AM=0ASubject: Twain and Willa Cather=0A =0A=0AI= am teaching My Antonia, and came across this little cutie:=3D20=0A=0Ahttp:= //www.everywritersresource.com/writingsense/2010/05/mark-twain-is-a-sl=3D= =0Aob-by-willa-cather/=0A=0AThis might explain why Cather was not seated at= Twain's table at his notorio=3D=0Aus 70th Birthday Celebration. =3D20=0A= =0ADustin Zima=0AQuincy University=3D