mark twain
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The Melancholy of Age
For Electric Literature, Henry Stewart examines the coming of age stories of Ray Bradbury. In addition to comparing Bradbury’s “boy’s boys” to characters in works by Mark Twain and James Agee, Stewart draws parallels between Bradbury’s novels and the author’s biography.…
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Who Robbed Mark Twain’s Grave?
Sometime between Christmas and New Year’s, a dastardly criminal (or Mark Twain superfan) stole a bronze plaque of Twain’s profile from his gravestone in Elmira, N.Y. At Melville House, former Elmira resident Alex Shephard examines the city’s complicated relationship with…
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Is Our Art Failing Us?
In his “Cross Cuts” column for the New York Times, A.O. Scott explains how, “in the midst of [our] hard times,” he feels as if “art is failing us.” Following his introductory essay, he asked a group of panelists some…
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The Funny Side of Writing
Over at the New Yorker, read an excerpt from Mike Sacks’s upcoming Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today’s Top Comedy Writers. The selection features an interview with George Saunders, in which the writer talks about his upbringing, getting inspiration for…
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The Strange Life of Dan Carter Beard
Dan Carter Beard wasn’t just one of the founders of Boy Scouts of America; he was also Mark Twain’s most trusted illustrator. Twain said of Beard’s work: Dan Beard is the only man who can correctly illustrate my writings for…
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Mark Twain Still Popular…In China!
Did you know that Mark Twain is one of the best known foreign writers in China? Neither did we. There is a well earned, and unabashed image of Mark Twain as the quintessential American author and for good reason. The…
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Twain’s Longest Dictation
In the New Yorker, Ben Tarnoff reviews Volume II of the Autobiography of Mark Twain. Notorious for his ability to talk a blue streak, Twain dictated the entire three-volume tome of over 5000 typewritten pages while lying in bed awaiting,…
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The Island of Stopped Clocks: Inside Cuba 50 Years after the Revolution
In a museum in Havana there are two skulls
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“I Am Greatly Troubled By What You Say”
In a Letter of Note from earlier this week, Mark Twain replies to a librarian’s note concerning the Brooklyn Public Library ban on Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in his characteristically wry and confounding way. After the library found copies…
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Once Banned, Now Loved
Eve’s Diary, Mark Twain’s retelling of Adam and Eve, is back on Charlton, MA library shelves after a 105-year absence. The book was banned due to seemingly explicit illustrations (though they “now seem quite chaste”). Its return is timely—this Saturday…
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Mark Twain Wanted to Scalp His Critics
Have you checked out Sunday Magazine? It’s writer David Friedman’s site with articles from The New York Times Sunday Magazine exactly 100 years ago from the date he posts. One of the articles for July 30, 1911, “When Mark Twain…