I think we are paddling into the similarly muddy waters of Sam taking his name from an obscure book that he may have read. There seems to be a lot of this going on in Twain scholarship--scholarship in general, really. Dustin Zima Elmira College On 1/25/15, Arianne <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > It would be interesting to learn if there was a book on Lincoln in Mark > TWain's library. Wouldn't surprise me to learn that Mark Twain indeed read > the account Lincoln wrote of a raft trip down the river. If so, it surely > could be an influence. I'd love to read the Lincoln story. > > Appreciate the Kaplan comments, too! > Arianne > > On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Hal Bush <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> For the record, the assertions in that article are extremely tenuous at >> best. It's always fun to speculate but there is evidently, in this case, >> no real evidence to support that Lincoln's stories are behind Huck Finn. >> If I missed the evidence please enlighten me. >> >> As far as somewhat less specific connections between AL & MT, now that is >> an interesting question. Twain wrote about Lincoln on at least 2 >> occasions >> and also gave at least one speech about Lincoln, for example. I tried to >> imagine the implications of that connection myself, in some of my work; >> I >> figure them both, in Twain's words, as "men of the border," a phrase I >> like >> a lot. But maybe my favorite formulation is by Fred Kaplan: "Just as >> Howells has called Twain the Lincoln of our literature," Kaplan writes, >> "I >> could envision Lincoln as the Twain of our politics." I like that!! >> >> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 7:18 AM, Dave Davis <[log in to unmask]> >> wrote: >> >> > That's pretty interesting. First I'd ever heard of this Vote Lincoln! >> book. >> > >> > SLC's (unpaid; maybe room & board, at best?) berth out West came >> > through >> > Orion. I don't know how big brother was selected for his post-- he must >> > have had some connection to the territorial governor, James Nye? (Nye >> was, >> > of course, a Lincoln appointee.) >> > >> > DDD >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> Prof. Harold K. Bush >> Professor of English >> 3800 Lindell >> Saint Louis University >> St. Louis, MO 63108 >> 314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h) >> <www.slu.edu/x23809.xml> >> > > > > -- > Arianne Laidlaw A '58 >