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A Collection of Letters and Papers selected by Robert Hirst
Harper Studio
May 2009
On Sale: April 21, 2009
Featuring: Mark Twain
240 pages
ISBN: 0061735000
EAN: 9780061735004
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
You had better shove this in the stove," Mark Twain said at
the top of an 1865 letter to his brother, "for I don't want
any absurd 'literary remains' and 'unpublished letters of
Mark Twain' published after I am planted." He was joking,
of course. But when Mark Twain died in 1910, he left behind
the largest collection of personal papers created by any
nineteenth-century American author. Here, for the first time in book form, are twenty-four
remarkable pieces by the American master—pieces that have
been handpicked by Robert Hirst, general editor of the Mark
Twain Project at the University of California, Berkeley.
In "Jane Austen," Twain wonders if Austen's goal is
to "make the reader detest her people up to the middle of
the book and like them in the rest of the chapters." "The
Privilege of the Grave" offers a powerful statement about
the freedom of speech while "Happy Memories of the Dental
Chair" will make you appreciate modern dentistry. In "Frank
Fuller and My First New York Lecture" Twain plasters the
city with ads to promote his talk at the Cooper Union (he
is terrified no one will attend). Later that day, Twain
encounters two men gazing at one of his ads. One man says
to the other: "Who is Mark Twain?" The other responds: "God
knows—I don't." Wickedly funny and disarmingly relevant, Who Is Mark Twain?
shines a new light on one of America's most beloved
literary icons—a man who was well ahead of his time.
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