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Mark Twain

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Mark Twain, in his old age, laying down reading a book.

Mark Twain's Religion

Mark Twain wasn’t a nihilist but held a complex, evolving spiritual outlook shaped by liberal religion.
Mark Twain's octagonal study in Elmira, New York.

Elmira, New York

The quirky characters and social dynamics of Mark Twain’s time in Elmira, New York.
Painting of the Bay of San Francisco, by Eduard Hildebrandt.

Mark Twain, the Californian

In 1864 San Francisco, Twain found hardship, Bohemia, and his voice—transforming from local reporter to rising literary force.
Mark Twain

Mark Twain and the Limits of Biography

The great American writer witnessed the forging of his nation – but Ron Chernow’s portrait cannot see beyond its subject.
Mark Twain sits in thought on stone steps surrounded by nature while holding papers

Twain Dreams

The enigma of Samuel Clemens.
Mark Twain

The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain

Populist and patrician, hustler and moralist, salesman and satirist, he embodied the tensions within his America, and ours.
The American Vandal
Podcast
The American Vandal

Reviewing “Mark Twain Among the Indians and Other Indigenous Peoples”

Scholars discuss a book that uses Twain’s depictions of Indigenous people to reconstruct his attitudes about race.
Black and white photograph of Mark Twain

Mark Twain in Buffalo

Mark Twain would be hopelessly out of favor with both wings of the modern duopoly.

Mark Twain’s Mind Waves

Mark Twain was a prankster, but his belief in telepathy was real enough that he worried about unintentional telepathic plagiarism.

Mark Twain in the Time of Cholera

The disease afflicted the author as he was writing what would become "The Innocents Abroad."

The Impossibility of Knowing Mark Twain

Even Twain's own autobiography cannot reveal the whole truth of the literary legend.
Mark Twain and Dorothy Quick.

Mark Twain’s Disturbing Passion for Collecting Young Girls

In his later years, the famous writer surrounded himself with a bevy of adoring adolescents.
Caricature of Mark Twain wearing a barrel with smoke from his pipe making a dollar sign.

Mark Twain’s Get-Rich-Quick Schemes

“I am frightened by the proportions of my prosperity,” Twain said. “It seems to me that whatever I touch turns to gold.”
A pair of hands reaches to grab a globe.

Does Anyone Else Have 1898 Déjà Vu?

Trump has upended a long tradition of claiming, however hypocritically, that foreign intervention is not about power or profit.
Palestinians inspect the ruins of a building destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, October 8, 2023.

The Desire to Annihilate Gaza Wasn’t Born on 10/7 — It’s Part of a Long Tradition

A long Euro-American tradition of genocide and ethnic cleansing imagined freeing a barren Palestine from Palestinian barbarity and heathenism.
Cover of "James" by Percival Everett

Gulp Fiction, or Into the Missouri-verse

On Percival Everett’s “James.”
Broken statue bust of a Black man.

A Bloody Retelling of 'Huckleberry Finn'

Percival Everett transforms Mark Twain’s classic 'Huckleberry Finn' into a tragedy.
Charles Dickens as he appears when reading, Harper’s Weekly (December 7th, 1867).

A Christmas Carol In Nineteenth-Century America, 1844-1870

What were Americans' immediate responses to "A Christmas Carol," and how did Dickens' reading tours and eventual death reshape its meaning?
The American Vandal
Podcast
The American Vandal

The Myths of Reconstruction in the Wake of Insurrection

In the week following the storming of the Capitol Building on January 6th, there has been a resurgent interest in the era of Reconstruction following the American Civil War. Senators, journalists, and even scholars have perpetuated long-standing myths about Reconstruction. Brook Thomas explains and debunks some of these myths, while arguing that an informed reckoning with the unfinished business of Reconstruction can help us understand and address the political volatility of the present day.
The American Vandal
Podcast
The American Vandal

American Humor & Matters of Empire

On the disciplinary history of American Humor Studies, and what makes American humor American, from 19th-century political satire to Hollywood's romantic comedies.