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Mark Twain and Dickens
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
WHAT is … difficult to understand is his lack of appreciation for Dickens.“1 William Lyon Phelps's belief that Mark Twain had been one of those rarest of nineteenth-century creatures, the writer who had had no interest in Dickens and who had avoided his influence, was shared by most Mark Twain critics for many years. Although writers like Minnie M. Brashear, who sided with Bernard DeVoto in the Brooks-DeVoto controversy, often pointed out that Clemens had been frequently exposed to Dickens' works, the consensus was stated by Stephen Lea-cock when he remarked that while Mark Twain and Dickens are undoubtedly the two greatest humorists of the nineteenth century, ”there is no record, and no internal evidence, to show that either was influenced by the work of the other.“2 Recently there have been signs of a shift in critical opinion concerning Mark Twain's relationship to Dickens. Walter Blair has shown the indisputable influence of A Tale of Two Cities on Mark Twain's masterpiece.3 Ada Nisbet's survey of Dickens research calls for further study of the ”promising subject“ of Clemens' indebtedness to Dickens, and in a recent review Ellen Moers has suggested at least one direction such a study might take.4
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1969
References
1 “Mark Twain,” YR, xxv (1935), 294. I wish to thank Henry Nash Smith and the Mark Twain Company for their permission to quote unpublished materials and Frederick Anderson, Editor of the Mark Twain Papers, for his knowledge and friendly advice.
2 “Two Humorists: Charles Dickens and Mark Twain,” YR, xxiv (1934), 122.
3 “The French Revolution and Huckleberry Finn,” MP, iv (1957), 21–35; Mark Twain and Huck Finn (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1960).
4 Miss Nisbet in Victorian Fiction: A Guide to Research, ed. Lionel Stevenson (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 111–112; Miss Moers in “The ‘Truth’ of Mark Twain,” New York Review of Books, v (20 Jan. 1966), 10–15. J. M. Ridland's recent essay, “Huck, Pip, and Plot,” NCF, xx (1965), 286–290, is a valuable contribution to the growing bibliography of Mark Twain-Dickens studies.
5 Harold Aspiz, “Mark Twain's Reading: A Critical Study,” unpubl. diss. (Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 1944), p. 209.
6 Albert E. Stone, The Innocent Eye: Childhood in Mark Twain's Imagination (New Haven, Conn., 1961), pp. 15–16.
7 Bryant Morey French, Mark Twain and the Gilded Age (Dallas, Texas, 1965), p. 165 and n.
8 Albert B. Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, 4 vols. (New York, 1912), iv, 1500–01; Henry W. Fischer, Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field (New York, 1922), p. 60.
9 Quoted in Elizabeth Wallace, Mark Twain and the Happy Island (Chicago, 1913), p. 133.
10 Young Sam Clemens (Portland, Ore., 1932), p. 78. Albert Stone's suggestions that the Artful Dodger influenced Mark Twain's treatment of his American Bad-Boys and that Clemens borrowed Dickens' use of the “childhood-at-bay” situation as a means of getting at social and historical problems in his own novels depend in large measure on Clemens' having read Twist. See The Innocent Eye, pp. 16–17.
11 Alia California, 2 Dec. 1865. Reprinted in Sketches of the Sixties, ed. John Howell (San Francisco, 1927), pp. 191–193. This sketch and its probable relationship to Dickens were called to my attention by Howard G. Baetzhold.
12 George H. Ford, Dickens and His Readers (Princeton, N. J., 1955), p. 112.
13 Bradford A. Booth, “Mark Twain's Friendship with Emeline Beach,” AL, xix (1947), 225. The similarity in the two travel books has been noted by Edgar H. Johnson in his Charles Dickens: His Triumph and Tragedy, 2 vols. (New York, 1952), i, 561.
14 Mark Twain's Burlesque Patterns (Dallas, 1960), pp. 101–103.
15 Olivia Langdon Clemens to S. L. Clemens, 28 Nov. 1871, Samossoud Collection, Mark Twain Papers (hereafter MTP).
16 Notebook 27, TS MTP, p. 20.
17 Mark Twain of the “Enterprise,” ed. Henry Nash Smith and Frederick Anderson (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1957), p. 92. Mark Twain does admit, however, that hearing the scene read gave him a new appreciation of it.
18 Sydney Morning Herald, 17 Sept. 1895. This long interview, a fruitful source for Clemens' critical attitudes, was called to my attention by Baetzhold.
19 Samuel Webster, ed., Mark Twain Businessman (Boston, 1946), p. 57.
20 TSS of both letters are in the MTP. Copyright © 1967, Mark Twain Company.
21 S. L. Clemens to Jane Clemens, 30 Jan. 1862. Publ. in Fred W. Lorch, “Mark Twain's Trip to Humboldt in 1861,” AL, x (1938), 345.
22 28 Feb. 1862, TS MTP. Copyright © 1967, Mark Twain Company.
23 Dixon Wecter, Sam Clemens of Hannibal (Boston, 1961), p. 240.
24 Writings, “Definitive Edition,” ed. A. B. Paine, 37 vols. (Mew York, 1922–25), xix, 329. Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent references to Mark Twain's works are to this edition, hereafter “Def. Ed.”
25 Notebook 15, TS MTP, p. 45.
26 “Arter that, Missis Brutus come out when the other fellars was gone, and like Mr. Clennam at the Circumlocution Office, she ‘wanted to know’.” The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, ed. Charles Honce (Chicago, 1928), p. 12.
27 Honce, p. 40. For other imitations see, e.g., “The Mint Defalcation,” Territorial Enterprise, 8 Jan. 1866, repr. in Mark Twain's San Francisco, ed. Bernard Taper (New York, 1963), p. 182; and “Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract,” Def. Ed., vii, 106–115.
28 Paine, Biography, pp. 644, 1500–01; Fischer, p. 60.
29 Mark Twain to Mrs. Fairbanks, ed. Dixon Wecter (San Marino, Calif., 1949), p. 65.
30 Keokuk Gate City, 2 Aug. 1910; Paine, Biography, p. 106.
31 S. L. Clemens to Frank E. Burrough, Dec. 1900, TS MTP. See also Paine, Biography, p. 102. Paine confuses father with son.
32 Notebook 3, TS MTP, p. 2.
33 The correct date is established by Baetzhold, “Mark Twain's ‘First Date’ with Olivia Langdon,” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, xi (1955), 155–157.
34 Adrian Stoutenburg and Laura Nelson Baker, Dear, Dear Livy (New York, 1963), pp. 33–34, 38–39.
35 Mary Lawton, A Lifetime with Mark Twain (New York, 1925), pp. 8, 56.
36 S. L. Clemens to Olivia Clemens, 24 Nov. and 22 Dec. 1873, Samossoud Collection, MTP.
37 The Mark Twain—Howells Letters, ed. Henry Nash Smith and William Gibson, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1960) I, 224, 225, 424.
38 S. L. Clemens to Clara Clemens, 5 Nov. 1892, Samossoud Collection, MTP.
39 Olivia Clemens to S. L. Clemens, 21 Jan. 1885, Samossoud Collection, MTP.
40 Lawton, pp. 39–40.
41 S. L. Clemens to Mrs. Foote, 2 Dec. 1887, MTP.
42 Phelps, p. 307.
43 Paine, Biography, pp. 1500–01.
44 Much of Clemens' peculiar and revealing attitude toward Moffett can be seen in the memorial included in the volume Europe and Elsewhere, Def. Ed., xxix, 351–354. Significantly, Clemens never says whether or not Moffett could use or interpret his knowledge of history; for him it was enough that he could remember so many facts.
45 Def. Ed., xxi, 228–289.
46 Fairbanks Letters, pp. 206–209. It is noteworthy that the letter is to young Mollie. He would never take such risks with a “celebrity” and only rarely with so close a friend as Howells.
47 Alta California, 5 Feb. 1868. Reprinted in The Twainian, vii (1948), 4.
48 Johnson, ii, 1082–83.
49 Paul Fatout, Mark Twain on the Lecture Circuit (Bloomington, Ind., 1960), pp. 85, 216.
50 Mark Twain in Eruption, ed. Bernard DeVoto (New York, 1940), p. 214. Clemens' memory may, of course, have been influenced by what he had read and heard of Dickens' readings during those thirty-nine years.
51 P. 294.
52 E.g., in a letter to Clara, 9 Oct. (1906?), he writes: “I have just finished ‘Henry Esmond.’ There are very fine passages in it. On the whole I liked it. Its close is dramatically great. But I had a surprise: from the beginning to the end I found nothing that was familiar to me. It turns out—per the Lyon [Isabel Lyon, Clemens’ secretary]—that I've not read this book before, but was mistaking ‘The Virginians’ for this one.” Samossoud Collection, MTP. Copyright © 1967, Mark Twain Company.
53 Contributions to The Galaxy, 1868–1871, ed. Bruce R. McElderry, Jr. (Gainesville, Fla., 1961), p. 74.
54 Fatout, pp. 145–146.
55 Mark Twain's Autobiography, ed. Albert B. Paine, 2 vols. (New York, 1924), i, 157.
56 London, 1890, pp. 157–158.
57 Mark Twain's Letters to Will Bowen, ed. Theodore Hornberger (Austin, Texas, 1941), p. 24.
58 The letter is included in the “Autobiographical Dictation” of 29 Aug. 1906, MTP. Copyright © 1967, Mark Twain Company.
59 Howells Letters, i, 112.
60 Undated (1877-78?), Moffett Collection, MTP. Copyright © 1967, Mark Twain Company. 61 Eruption, pp. 265–267.
62 Mark Twain's Notebook, ed. Albert B. Paine (New York, 1935), p. 184.
63 Notebook 20, TS MTP, p. 7. Palmer's letters to Clemens are also in the MTP.
64 “Autobiographical Dictation,” 28 March 1907, MTP. Copyright © 1967, Mark Twain Company.
65 Notebook 19, TS MTP, p. 28. Copyright © 1967, Mark Twain Company.
66 P. 36. Copyright © 1967, Mark Twain Company. Dugald Dalgetty figures in Scott's Legend of Montrose. Clemens waxed hot and cold over Scott but detested Smith.
67 E.g., in his comments on Cairo, Def. Ed., xii, 214.
68 MS DV 141, MTP.
69 Howells Letters, ii, 595.
70 Sydney Morning Herald, 17 Sept. 1895. One notes in the interview Clemens' self-consciousness as critic and his curiously ambiguous attitude toward pathos, both discussed above.
71 Interview in the Johannesburg, South Africa, Star, 18 May 1896. The exclamation-pointed “and even Thackeray” does show Clemens' awareness of the so-called “Dickens-Thackeray Controversy.”
72 Notebook 36, TS MTP, p. 6.