Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868

by Mark Twain, Harriet E. Smith (Editor), Richard Bucci (Editor), Lin Salamo (Editor)

Overview

Here is young Sam Clemens—in the world, getting famous, making love—in 155 magnificently edited letters that trace his remarkable self-transformation from a footloose, irreverent West Coast journalist to a popular lecturer and author of The Jumping Frog, soon to be a national and international celebrity. And on the move he was—from San Francisco to New York, to St. Louis, and then to Paris, Naples, Rome, Athens, Constantinople, Yalta, and the Holy Land; back to New York and on to Washington; back to San Francisco and Virginia City; and on to lecturing in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York. Resplendent with wit, love of life, ambition, and literary craft, this new volume in the wonderful Bancroft Library edition of Mark Twain's Letters will delight and inform both scholars and general readers.



This volume has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mark Twain Foundation, Jane Newhall, and The Friends of The Bancroft Library.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520036697
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	02/02/1990
Series:	Mark Twain Papers , #9
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	704
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), best known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an author and humorist noted for the novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which has been called "The Great American Novel") and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, among many other books. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and he spent time as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before finding fame as a writer.

Date of Birth:

November 30, 1835

Date of Death:

April 21, 1910

Place of Birth:

Florida, Missouri

Place of Death:

Redding, Connecticut

Editorial Reviews

Containing all 155 of Twain's letters surviving from this two-year period, the second volume of this scrupulously annotated, richly illustrated, definitive edition of Twain's letters follows the ambitious Twain, then in his early 30s, from his arrival in New York, through his trip among sanctimonious fellow-passengers on the ``Quaker City'' to the Holy Land, back to his establishing a lucrative career as humorous lecturer, and, finally, to his worshipful courtship of Olivia Langdon. A sheer pleasure in themselves, these letters also furnish a helpful context for The Innocents Abroad and show Twain trying showily to cast off his Western wildness and adjust to what he thought were the East's expectations. A fine continuation of volume 1, Mark Twain's Letters, 1853-66 ( LJ 4/15/87).-- Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, Mo.

Library Journal