I am writing to thank this list for making me aware of Vic Doyno's work.  I have a bad habit of learning about a major scholar who is also a great person just as he or she passes from the scene.  I know much of Twain scholarship, but had missed Prof. Doyno.  I will be using his work for a book on race for which I have a contract and in which I meditate on how Twain's complicated relationship with race might resemble certain others in the judicial establishment.  The result may be useful, I hope.

With a belated expression of gratitude to Prof. Doyno,

Mae Kuykendall

Professor of Law
Michigan State University College of Law
648 N. Shaw Lane Rm 366
East Lansing, MI 488241300
517-432-6894 (office)
734-645-5769 (cell)
517-381-2082 (Haslett land)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=233952

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Barbara Schmidt
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2016 12:39 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: RIP: Victor A. Doyno, 1937-2016

The first time I ever met Vic Doyno was at the 2001 Elmira Conference and watched him present a paper titled "Twain Writes with Burning Ink: King Leopold's Soliloquy."  What a presentation! -- To watch him as he channeled Mark Twain and his writing process.  I hope somewhere in the Elmira archives there is a recording of Doyno presenting that lecture.

Doyno's book _Selected Writings of an American Skeptic_ with its text of the outstanding letter from Mark Twain to Karl Gerhardt on slavery had been a part of my library since 1996.  However, I had no idea of just what sort of author and editor and scholar and talent Doyno was until I watched him present his Elmira lecture in person that August afternoon.  After his presentation I made it a point to meet him and tell him how much I would have considered it a privilege if I had ever been a student in one of his classes.  He had that sort of power to motivate and inspire.

Years ago, when I started noticing that Doyno's name seemed to be missing from conferences and journals and publications where I would expect to see them, I asked "Whatever happened to...."  And then I was told about the diagnosis that no family ever wants to hear.  Thanks to Taylor for helping break the news to a community of scholars and friends who much admired Doyno's work.

Barb