The Cambridge Companion to Mark Twain

by Edited by Forrest G. Robinson

• ISBN13: 9780521440363
• ISBN10: 052144036X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-06-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Cambridge Companion to Mark Twain offers new and thought provoking essays on an author of enduring pre-eminence in the American canon. The book is a collaborative project, assembled by scholars who have played crucial roles in the recent explosion of Twain criticism. Accessible enough to interest both experienced specialists and students new to Twain criticism, the essays examine Twain from a wide variety of critical perspectives, and include timely reflections by major critics on the hotly debated dynamics of race and slavery perceptible throughout his writing.The volume includes a chronology of Twain's life and a list of suggestions for further reading, to provide the students or general reader with sources for background as well as additional information.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chronology of Mark Twain's life

Mark Twain as an American icon

The innocent at large: Mark Twain's travel writing Forrest

Mark Twain and women

Mark Twain's civil war: humor's reconstructive writing

Banned in Concord: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and classic American literature

Black critics and Mark

Mr Clemens and Jim Crow: Twain race and blackface

Speech acts and social action: Mark Twain and the politics of literary performance

How the boss played the game: Twain's critique of imperialism in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Mark Twain's travels in the racial occult: Following the Equator and the dream tales

Mark Twain's theology: the Gods of a Brevet presterian

Further reading

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.