COURT TRIALS IN MARK TWAIN AND OTHER ESSAYS COURT TRIALS IN MARK TWAIN AND OTHER ESSAYS

by

D. M. McKEITHAN

• MAR TINUS NIJHOFF / 'S-GRAVENHAGE /1958 Copyright 1958 by Martinus Nijlwff, The HagU/!, Netherlands So/tcover reprint o/the hardcover 1st edition 1958 All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form

ISBN 978-94-011-8244-7 ISBN 978-94-011-8921-7 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-94-011-8921-7 TO M. s. FOREWORD

The major section of this volume, dealing with court trials in Mark Twain, is here published for the first time with the exception of the discussion of the trial of Silas Phelps. The account of this trial and the essay entitled "The Source of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Detective" were originally published to• gether as "Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Detective" in Studia Neophilologica in 1953 (XXV, 161-179). In this section I tried to retain at least a little of the quality of Twain in retelling the stories and on this basis alone it should be judged. The other essays appeared, respectively, in the Philological Quarterly for October, 1953 (XXXII, 353-365), the Tennessee Historical Quarterly for September, 1952 (XI, 246-253), the Southern Folklore Quarterly for December, 1953 (XVII, 241-243), the Philological Quarterly for July, 1948 (XXVII, 276-279), Modern Language Notes for April, 1948 (LXIII, 221-228), and the University of Texas Studies in English for 1949 (XXVIII, 257-270 ). Twain's interest in court trials extended throughout his writing career, and the major court trials appear in books which were published over the years, from The Gilded Age in 1873 to The Mysterious Stranger in 1916, six years after Mark Twain's death. The Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass letters, written before he became a cub pilot on the Mississippi, represent his ap• prentice work. They and his two versions of the story of the bull and the bees illustrate the tremendous influence which the native American humorists of the frontier exerted on his style, themes, and point of view. This influence - which is very pro• nounced also in Tom Sawyer, Detective - dominated his writing in the earlier years and never disappeared from it. The next two essays present Twain in the role of defender of democratic American institutions and traditions against the x FOREWORD attacks of foreign critics. No provincial, Twain delighted in travel in Europe, where he lived for about ten years, but he had no doubt about the superiority of the American system, though he frequently satirized its shortcomings and had a clear realization of the vast difference between the ideal and the reality. The last two essays explain Twain's use of foreign literary sources in Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective. In spite of the indebtedness here, for details of plot, to French and Scandinavian sources, the spirit, tone, and style of these books are entirely American. The major themes here dealt with are Twain's interest in the administration of justice in the United States, his use of court trials as elements in his plots, his debt to frontier American literature, his reply to foreign critics of America, and his ability to use foreign sources for details of plots while remaining thoroughly American in style, spirit, and point of view. The Americanism of Mark Twain is manifest in every essay.

Bordeaux March II, 1958 CONTENTS

COURT TRIALS IN MARK TWAIN

I. Introduction 3 II. The Trial of Laura Hawkins in The Gilded Age 10 III. The Trial of Muff Potter in Tom Sawyer 21 IV. The Trial of Luigi Capello in Pudd'nhead Wilson 26

V. The Trial of]oan of Arc in Joan of Arc 41 VI. The Trial of Silas Phelps in Tom Sawyer, Detective 91 VII. The Trial of Father Peter in The Mysterious Stranger 104

OTHER ESSAYS

VIII. Mark Twain's Letters of Thomas]efferson Snodgrass 117 IX. Mark Twain's Story of the Bull and the Bees 132 X. Bull Rides Described by 'Scroggins', G. W. Harris, and Mark Twain 141 XI. The Occasion of Mark Twain's Speech On Foreign Critics 144 XII. More About Mark Twain's War with English Critics of America 148 XIII. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer Abroad and]ules Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon 156 XIV. The Source of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Detective 169