Mark Twain: A Short Introduction: 30 (Wiley Blackwell Introductions to Literature) - Softcover

Railton, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0631234748 ISBN 13: 9780631234746

Publisher: WB, 2003

Synopsis

This book introduces Mark Twain through close readings of his seven major works, including Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Connecticut Yankee and Pudd’nhead Wilson.

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• Introduces Mark Twain through close readings of his seven major works, including Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Connecticut Yankee and Pudd’nhead Wilson.
  
• Investigates the tension between the real-life person, Samuel Clemens, and the fictional person, Mark Twain.
  
• Provides an original reading of Twain’s obsession with performance and popularity.
  
• Analyses the significance of Twain’s books for American culture and identity.
  
• Illustrated with images from first editions of Twain’s works.
  
• A short appendix directs readers to the author’s award-winning website on ‘Mark Twain in his Times’.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Railton is Professor of English at the University of Virginia. His previous books include Fenimore Cooper: A Study of his Imagination (1978) and Authorship and Audience: Literary Performance in the American Renaissance (1991). He is the creator of two major websites on Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture and Mark Twain in His Times.

From the Back Cover

Emphasizing Mark Twain’s ambitions and achievements as a writer, this introduction features close readings of his seven major works, including Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Connecticut Yankee and Pudd’nhead Wilson. It locates these texts in the larger contexts of Samuel Clemens’ life and of late nineteenth-century American culture, investigating what the fictional persona of Mark Twain meant to the real-life person, Samuel Clemens, and what Twain’s books meant to contemporary Americans. The book provides both a general introduction to Twain’s major texts and an original reading of his obsession with performance and personality. It is illustrated with images from early editions of Twain’s works. A short appendix directs readers to the author’s award-winning website, “Mark Twain in his Times,” where they can explore the texts and issues analyzed in the book further.

Edition details

• Publisher: WB
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0631234748
• ISBN 13: 9780631234746
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144