Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter (Mark Twain and His Circle Series)

465 Pages·2008·1.83 MB·English

by  James E. Caron

000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page i
Mark Twain
U N R
NSANCTIFIED EWSPAPER EPORTER
000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page ii
M A R K T WA I N
AND HIS CIRCLE
S E R I E S
(cid:129) (cid:129) (cid:129) (cid:129)
Tom Quirk, Editor
000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page iii
Mark Twain
U N R
NSANCTIFIED EWSPAPER EPORTER
J E. C
AMES ARON
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS
COLUMBIA AND LONDON
000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page iv
Copyright © 2008 by
The Curators of the University of Missouri
University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201
Printed and bound in the United States of America
All rights reserved
5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 09 08
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Caron, James Edward, 1952–
Mark Twain, unsanctified newspaper reporter / James E. Caron.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “A fresh perspective on the early years of Samuel Clemens’s
career as a writer and newspaper reporter. Caron examines Clemens’s
developing comic voice in his journalism in Nevada and San Francisco, then
in the travel letters from Hawaii and letters chronicling his trip from
California to New York City”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-8262-1802-5 (alk. paper)
1. Twain, Mark, 1835-1910—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Twain,
Mark, 1835-1910—Knowledge—Journalism. 3. Twain, Mark, 1835–
1910—Correspondence. 4. Authors, American—19th century—
Correspondence. 5. Humorists, American—19th century 6. Humorists,
American—19th century—Biography. 7. Twain, Mark, 1835-1910—Travel.
8. Twain, Mark, 1835-1910—Knowledge—America. 9. United States—
Description and travel. I. Title.
PS1338.C37 2008
818'.409—dc22
2008011961
This paper meets the requirements of the
American National Standard for Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984.
Designer: Foley Design
Typesetter: BookComp, Inc.
Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc.
Typefaces: Minion, Carpenter ICG, American Typewriter, and
EngraversDRom
Acknowledgment is made for permission to quote from Mark Twain’s
Letters, Volume 1: 1853–1866,ed. Edgar M. Branch, Michael B.
Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson, © 1988 by
The University of California Press.
000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page v
FOR LOU BUDD AND HENRY NASH SMITH
they showed the way
000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page vi
Mark Twain’s early literary
training was that of a writer
for newspapers, where news
was scarce and hard to get, and the
public demanded their intellectual
fare dressed with the hottest,
strongest condiments. Is it not nat-
ural that we should see distinct
and powerful traces of this method
in all his later work?
GEORGET. FERRIS
Appleton’s Journal
JULY4, 1874
000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page vii
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xiii
Prologue for a Comic Performance 1
Act One
_______
The Comic Lineage of Washoe Mark Twain
Scene One: Backwoods Civility; or, How the Roarer Became a Gentleman
Washoe Mark Twain and the Old Southwest Writers:
Comic Violence and Cultural Barbarism 25
David Crockett Meets Nimrod Wildfire 32
Charles F. M. Noland on the Devil’s Fork 41
William Tappan Thompson’s Domestic Roarer 44
Scene Two: The Backwoods Roarer and the “Literary Comedian”
Charles Farrar Browne’s Artemus Ward: Scalawag and Spokesman 50
vii
000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page viii
viii CONTENTS
Scene Three: The Communal Function of Comic Violence
Sut Lovingood “Playin’ Hell” 69
William Wright’s Dan De Quille as Citizen Clown 76
Act Two
_______
Washoe Mark Twain
Scene One: Sam Clemens Clowning on the Comstock
Fighting Words 85
Virginia City Carnival 88
Brewing Washoe Mark Twain 98
Mark Twain’s Humor of Raillery 116
Framing the Humor of Raillery 123
Scene Two: Playing with Comic Dynamite
Reading a Reporter Who Mocks Journalism 127
Lying to the Public for Laughs 135
Punchlines That Hurt 156
Act Three
_______
Mark Twain in San Francisco
Scene One: “Strike Up Higher” in the Periodical World
A National Campaign 163
Periodicals and the Professional Comic Writer 169
Scene Two: Satire and the Bohemian Journalist
The Satirist Reporting for the Morning Call 179
Satirist as Literary Critic: Mark Twain in the Californian 186
Fitz Smythe and the Sanctified 194
Readers and Aesthetics in the Marketplace of Literary Periodicals 208
000 fm (i-xvi) 4/30/08 11:15 AM Page ix
CONTENTS ix
Scene Three: American “Flâneurs”
Of Flâneursand Feuilletonistes:The Example of Bret Harte 222
Comic Flâneur:Charles Webb 227
Scene Four: “Flânerie”That Subverts the News
Mark Twain’s Comic Flânerie 234
The Pose of Naive Innocence 242
Spinning Yarns out of Facts 249
Scene Five: “Foremost of the Merry Gentlemen of the California Press”
That Celebrated Jumping Frog 257
A Taste for Comic Material 265
Act Four
_______
Correspondent on Assignment
Scene One: Work and Leisure in Two Cultures
Sam Clemens in Hawai‘i 283
American Missionaries and Hawai‘ian Culture: Industry as Salvation 289
How Hula Hulaturned Mark Twain into a Missionary 299
Scene Two: Mark Twain’s Comic Raid on the Kingdom of Hawai‘i
Scenes in Honolulu 309
Mark Twain and Mr. Brown Ransack the Islands 312
Mr. Brown Defends a Centric Vision of Hawai‘i 323
Eccentric yet Civilized(?) Mark Twain and Mr. Brown 330
Scene Three: Writing Travel Letters
The Out-of-Town Correspondent 339