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In a radical departure from standard editions, Twain's most famous
novels are published here as the continuous narrative that the
author originally envisioned. More controversial will be the
decision by the editor, noted Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben, to
eliminate the pejorative racial labels that Twain employed in his
effort to write realistically about social attitudes of the 1840s.
Gribben points out that dozens of other editions currently make
available the inflammatory words, but their presence has gradually
diminished the potential audience for two of Twain's masterpieces.
"Both novels can be enjoyed deeply and authentically without those
continual encounters with the hundreds of now-indefensible racial
slurs," Gribben explains.
Dr. Alan Gribben, a foremost Twain scholar, made waves in 1980 with
the publication of Mark Twain's Library, a study that exposed for
the first time the breadth of Twain's reading and influences. Prior
to Gribben's work, much of Twain's reading history was assumed
lost, but through dogged searching Gribben was able to source much
of Twain's library. Mark Twain's Literary Resources is a
much-expanded examination of Twain's library and readings. Volume I
included Gribben's reflections on the work involved in cataloging
Twain's reading and analysis of Twain's influences and opinions.
This volume, long awaited, is an in-depth and comprehensive
accounting of Twain's literary history. Each work read or owned by
Twain is listed, along with information pertaining to editions,
locations, and more. Gribben also includes scholarly annotations
that explain the significance of many works, making this volume of
Mark Twain's Literary Resources one of the most important additions
to our understanding of America's greatest author.
Mark Twain's two most famous novels are published here as the
continuous narrative that he originally envisioned. Twain started
writing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn soon after finishing The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), but difficulties with the sequel
took him eight years to resolve. Consequently his contemporary
readers failed to view the volumes as the companion books he had
intended. In the twentieth century, publishers, librarians, and
academics continued to separate the two titles, with the result
that they are seldom read sequentially even though they feature
many of the same characters and their narratives open in the
identical Mississippi River village, St. Petersburg. This Original
Text Edition brings the stories back together and faithfully
follows the wording of the first editions.
This coming-of-age story captures a vanished world of outdoor
action and introduces Mark Twain's two most enduring literary
characters, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. In a novel that Twain
termed a "hymn to boyhood," Tom and Huck fish and swim in the
Mississippi River, search for buried treasure, and hide in a
haunted house. Tom Sawyer falls for pretty Becky Thatcher, tricks
his pals into painting a fence for him, and stages an elaborate
prank on the schoolmaster. Around the edges of this idyllic
boy-life, however, loom dangerous events in the fictional village
of St. Petersburg: Tom and Huck witness a midnight murder in a
graveyard, the killer escapes from the courtroom while Tom is
testifying, Tom and Becky become lost in a labyrinthine cave, and
two sinister villains plot robbery and revenge against a wealthy
widow. This Original Text Edition faithfully follows the wording of
the first edition, and the editor supplies a historical and
literary introduction as well as a guide to Twain's satirical
targets.
In a radical departure from standard editions, the coming-of-age
story that introduces Mark Twain's two most enduring literary
characters-Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn-is published here with
its disturbing racial labels translated as "slave" and "Indian."
Everything else is completely intact in a novel that Twain termed a
"hymn to boyhood." Tom and Huck fish and swim in the Mississippi
River, search for buried treasure, and hide in a haunted house.
Around the edges of this idyllic boy-life, however, loom dangerous
events in the fictional village of St. Petersburg: Tom and Huck
witness a midnight murder in a graveyard, the killer escapes from
the courtroom while Tom is testifying, and two sinister villains
plot robbery and revenge against a wealthy widow. Readers can
follow the boys' adventures without confronting the dozens of
racial slurs that are available in other editions of the book. The
editor supplies a historical and literary introduction as well as a
guide to Twain's satirical targets.
Perennially listed among the classics of American literature, Mark
Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) broke new ground by
allowing a teenage boy to narrate his own story. The son of a cruel
town drunkard, Huck Finn vividly describes his friendship with Tom
Sawyer, his resolve to run away from his abusive father, and his
decision to join a runaway slave named Jim in a search for freedom.
Jim and Huck's days and nights on a raft floating down the
Mississippi River form one of the most evocative stories of
interracial bonding ever written, and the bizarre characters they
encounter in their journey are memorably sketched. Though comical
in places, ultimately the book warns about the price of immoral
social conformity. Editor Alan Gribben explains the historical and
literary context of Twain's novel and vigorously defends it against
the many critics who fault its language, relationships, and
conclusion. Gribben also supplies a helpful guide to Twain's
satirical targets. This Original Text Edition faithfully follows
the wording of the first edition.
In a radical departure from standard editions, Mark Twain's most
famous novel is published here with one disturbing racial label
translated as "slave." In seeking to record accurately the speech
of uneducated boys and adults along the Mississippi River in the
1840s, Twain casually included an epithet that is diminishing the
potential audience for his masterpiece. While dozens of other
editions preserve the inflammatory slur that the author employed
for the sake of realism, the NewSouth Edition proves that the main
point of Twain's masterpiece -- the immense harm deriving from
immoral, inhumane social conformity -- comes through just as
vibrantly without obliging readers to confront hundreds of
insulting racial pejoratives. The editor's Introduction supplies
the historical and literary context for Twain's groundbreaking
book, along with a helpful guide to his satirical targets.
This first installment of the new multi-volume Mark Twain's
Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading
recounts Dr. Alan Gribben's fascinating 45-year search for
surviving volumes from the large library assembled by Twain and his
family. That collection of more than 3,000 titles was dispersed
through impromptu donations and abrupt public auctions, but over
the years nearly a thousand volumes have been recovered. Gribben's
research also encompasses many hundreds of other books, stories,
essays, poems, songs, plays, operas, newspapers, and magazines with
which Mark Twain was demonstrably familiar. Gribben published the
original edition of Mark Twain's Library in 1980. Hailed by the
eminent Twain scholar Louis J. Budd as "a superb job that will last
for generations," the work nevertheless soon went out of print and
for three decades has been a hard-to-find item on the rare book
market. Meanwhile, over a distinguished career of writing,
teaching, and research on Twain, Gribben continued to annotate,
revise, and expand the content such that it has become his life's
masterwork. Thoroughly revised, enlarged, and retitled, Mark
Twain's Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of His Library and
Reading now reappears, to greatly expand our comprehension of the
incomparable author's reading tastes and influences. Volume I
traces Twain's extensive use of public libraries. It identifies
Twain's favorite works, but also reveals his strong
dislikes-Chapter 10 is devoted to his "Library of Literary
Hogwash," specimens of atrocious poetry and prose that he delighted
in ridiculing. In describing Twain's habit of annotating his
library books, Gribben reveals his methods of detecting forged
autographs and marginal notes that have fooled booksellers,
collectors, and libraries. The volume's 25 chapters trace from
various perspectives the patterns of Twain's voracious reading and
relate what he read to his own literary outpouring. A "Critical
Bibliography" evaluates the numerous scholarly books and articles
that have studied Twain's reading, and an index guides readers to
the volume's diverse subjects. Twain enjoyed cultivating a public
image as a largely unread natural talent; on occasion he even
denied being acquainted with titles that he had owned, inscribed,
and annotated in his own personal library. He convinced many
friends and interviewers that he had no appetite for fiction,
poetry, drama, or belles-lettres, yet Gribben reveals volumes of
evidence to the contrary. He examines this unlettered pose that
Twain affected and speculates about the reasons behind it. In
reality, whether Twain was memorizing the classic writings of
ancient Rome or the more contemporary works of Milton, Byron,
Shelley, Dickens, and Tennyson-or, for that matter, quoting from
the best-selling fiction and poetry of his day-he exhibited a
lifelong hunger to overcome the brevity of his formal education.
Several of Gribben's chapters explore the connections between
Twain's knowledge of authors such as Malory, Shakespeare, Poe, and
Browning, and his own literary works, group readings, and family
activities. Volumes II and III of Mark Twain's Literary Resources:
A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading will be released in
2019 and will deliver an "Annotated Catalog" arranged from A to Z,
documenting in detail the staggering scope of Twain's reading. -
book is one-of-a-kind, a monumental project, representing 45 years
of research - scholarship of the book is impeccable, by writer
internationally known in the Twain community - publisher has a
much-publicized association with Alan Gribben; in 2011 we released
the highly controversial NewSouth Edition of Huck Finn and Tom
Sawyer, edited by Dr. Gribben - Twain is among our more popular
19th-century American writers, and works about him are often of
literary interest
Both a life story and a portrait of public higher education during
the twentieth century, Harry Huntt Ransom captures the spirit of a
dynamic individual who dedicated his talents to nurturing
intellectual life in Texas and beyond. Tracing the details of
Ransom's youth in Galveston and Tennessee and his education at
Yale, where he earned a doctorate, Alan Gribben provides new
insight into the factors that shaped Ransom's future as a renowned
administrator and defender of the humanities. Ransom's career at
the University of Texas began in 1935, when he was hired as an
instructor of English. He rose through the ranks to become
chancellor, stepping down in 1971 during a volatile period when
debates about the University's central mission raged-particularly
over the question of commercializing higher education. The
development of Ransom's lasting legacy, the Humanities Research
Center bearing his name, is explored in depth as well. Bringing to
life a legendary figure, Harry Huntt Ransom is a colorful testament
to a singular man of letters who had the audacity to propose "that
there be established somewhere in Texas-let's say in the capital
city-a center of our cultural compass, a research center to be the
Bibliotheque Nationale of the only state that started out as an
independent nation."
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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