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Mark Twain and Orion Clemens - Brothers, Partners, Strangers (Paperback, New edition)
Loot Price: R385
Discovery Miles 3 850
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Mark Twain and Orion Clemens - Brothers, Partners, Strangers (Paperback, New edition)
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List price R475
Loot Price R385
Discovery Miles 3 850
You Save R90 (19%)
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One became America's greatest writer. The other died in obscurity
and failure. As brothers, they shaped each other's lives and work
In a compelling way, Philip Fanning traces the fraternal
relationship of Orion and Samuel Clemens from its beginning in
Hannibal, Missouri, in the 1830s to Orion's death in Iowa in 1897.
He demonstrates that Orion's influence on the writer known as Mark
Twain was profound, pervasive, and prolonged. In some respects,
Samuel defined himself against Orion's formidable background. It
was Orion who became the chief financial and spiritual support of
the Clemens family following the father's controversial death in
1847. It was Orion who led the way for his brother into printing,
journalism, and mine speculation. And it was Orion who served as
Sam's first real editor and literary mentor, recognizing and
encouraging his younger brother's talents as a writer. The two
siblings had much in common, and they often appeared to be
codependent, so much so that their attitudes veered sharply from
mutual admiration to mutual disdain and rivalry. Whereas Orion was
self-effacing, easygoing, humble, and adventurous in his politics
and progressive in his views, Twain was often ill-tempered and
antagonistic toward those around him and conservative in his
outlook. He frequently portrayed his older brother in
autobiographical writings and letters as a buffoon and a
laughingstock. Fanning--who drew upon extensive archival sources,
unpublished letters between the two brothers, and the Mark Twain
Papers at the University of California, Berkeley--charts these
divergences in their characters and in their fortunes. As Twain
rose to become a national celebrity and a financial success,
Orion's finances and self-esteem disintegrated, and Twain's
treatment of his brother became evermore harsh and mocking.
Fanning's study stands as both a biography of a fractious fraternal
relationship and a work of scholarship that highlights for the
first time how significantly Orion Clemens influenced Twain's
psychic and artistic economy.
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