Ex Libris: Mark Twain

In this latest installment of our ‘Ex Libris’ series, we find some surprises in the books that most influenced one of America’s greatest novelists.

Mark Twain in Turin, Italy. Public Domain

That Samuel Clemens (1835–1910) became an emblematic American literary icon is not without irony. He despised the formal schooling of his boyhood, and soon after the death of his father in 1847, he happily left the classroom. For the next 20 years traveled and worked a smorgasbord of jobs, among them typesetter, river boat pilot—from which he derived his pseudonym Mark Twain—and newspaper reporter. Having won some fame for his stories and lectures, he finally followed what he later described as his “call” to literature.

Though he lacked formal education, Twain had a stock of other valuable goods he could deliver to pen and paper. Through his rough and tumble wanderings he maintained a keen eye for detail, building up a supply of stories and anecdotes that would launch him into the literary life. His sense of the absurd and gift for humor that appeared in so much of his work won him an enormous audience both in America and abroad, as did his talent on the lecture circuit.

"Mark Twain, America's Best Humorist," by J. Keppler. Illustration in Puckographs. The writer was a tremendous public speaker as well. Public Domain

Like so many others who leave their mark on the world, Mark Twain was a reader.

The Europeans

In “The Prince and the Pauper,” Twain wrote, “When I am the king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”

Despite his distaste for formal schooling, or perhaps because of it, Twain took his teachings out of books. Surprisingly, this quintessential American author took an immense interest in European authors. Near the beginning of his 1922 article, “Mark Twain and Don Quixote,” Olin Harris Moore wrote:

“We like to think that Mark Twain, above all other authors, dug into the virgin soil of his native country, and brought forth rich treasures which could be found nowhere else. We like to say: ‘What genuine American humor! What a true picture of American boyhood! Nothing of Europe in Mark Twain! Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are real Americans!’”

Moore spent the rest of the article arguing the opposite: that Twain and his writing were heavily influenced by European authors. Moore tells us, for instance, that the author of “Huckleberry Finn” read Saint-Simon’s “Memoirs” 20 times, an unlikely possibility given their length, and that he was an ardent fan of William Lecky’s “History of European Morals.”

In this assemblage of European writers, two in particular commanded Twain’s attention and affections.

A Connecticut Writer in King Arthur’s Court

In “Life on the Mississippi,” Twain accused the widely read novels of Sir Walter Scott of “medieval chivalry-silliness.” He even regarded Scott’s historical romances as a cause of the American Civil War, writing, “Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war.”

Despite this critique of Scott, Twain once found himself charmed by a medieval romance. In 1884 in a Rochester bookshop, writer George Washington Cable introduced Twain to Thomas Malory’s “Morte d’Arthur.” As Cable later said, “He had read in it a day or two, when I saw come upon his cheekbones those vivid pink spots which every one who knew him intimately and closely knew meant that his mind was working with all its energies.”

Twain’s 1880 novel “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” satirizes the superstitions and backward thinking of Malory’s Arthurian court, yet Twain also celebrates the virtues of Arthur and knights like Lancelot. Fascinated and charmed, he rarely traveled without a copy of Malory close at hand.

That Twain had a longtime fascination with the Middle Ages is revealed in two other historical fictions, “The Prince and the Pauper” and “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.” Published in 1896, his story about Joan was poorly received by the public, which wanted humor from the king of literary comedy. Even so, it was Twain’s personal favorite of his books. In a 1904 piece for Harper’s magazine, he described Joan as “by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced.”

Published as frontispiece in Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,” as illustrated by Daniel Beard. Public Domain

Quixote on the Mississippi

With its satirical take on knighthood and chivalry, we can understand why Twain enjoyed and studied Miguel Cervantes’ “Don Quixote.” In fact, he took such pleasure in this tale of the deluded errant knight accompanied by a pragmatic sidekick that he applied this same device of camaraderie to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

Like Quixote, Tom is the romantic who builds fantasies from books, in this case a boy whose active imagination brings Robin Hood, pirates, and other fanciful characters to 19th-century Missouri. Like Quixote’s Sancho Panza, the prosaic Huck acts as Tom’s common-sense foil. In both books, it is this clash between romantic fantasy and earthy native wit that provides much of the entertainment.

(L–R) Huck, the Lost Dauphin, as he calls himself, the Duke, and Jim, as illustrated by Achille Sirouy. Public Domain

At the end of “Huckleberry Finn,” Huck decides to “light out for the Territory” and to head west. In creating Tom and Huck, Twain went in the opposite direction. He headed to Spain and the world of Miguel de Cervantes.

For that, we readers can only be grateful.

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