How Mark Twain gave us Thurgood Marshall

Margaret Mitchell and Mark Twain are two authors who are often discussed in the context of racism in literature. Gone With the Wind  and The Adventures of Huck Finn  are two of the most frequently banned books across the U.S.

But while debate rages in school boards across the country, it’s interesting to note that in their personal lives Mitchell and Twain were quite generous to aspiring black professional students. Over a number of years Mitchell secretly funded dozens of African American medical students at Morehouse college and elsewhere, helping to lift up a class of black professionals in the segregated South. 

And while Twain’s philanthropy centered on one student in particular, it may have had an even more powerful impact on society. Warner T. McGuinn, the man whose room and board Twain paid at Yale Law School, graduated #1 in his class and went on to become a force in the early civil rights movement in Maryland and a mentor to Thurgood Marshall. In a letter to the dean of the law school, Twain explained his reasoning for supporting McGuinn:

“I do not believe I would very cheerfully help a white student who would ask for the benevolence of a stranger, but I do not feel so about the other color. We have ground the manhood out of them, and the shame is ours, not theirs, and we should pay for it.”

 Interesting, no?

Makin' it Twain!

Here’s a fun fact for you: At a time when the average household income was less than $500 per year, that venerated man of the people, Mark Twain, had household expenses in excess of $30,000 per year. Sixty times the median. In today’s dollars,  that would be more than $3,000,000 per year. And he still  had to hit the lecture circuit to make ends meet.

"Don't let me make you sad"

"Really our Fourth of July is our day of mourning, our day of sorrow. Fifty thousand people who have lost friends, or who have had friends crippled, receive that Fourth of July, when it comes, as a day of mourning for the losses they have sustained in their families.

“I have suffered in that way myself. I have had relatives killed in that way. One was in Chicago years ago—an uncle of mine, just as good an uncle as I have ever had, and I had lots of them—yes, uncles to burn, uncles to spare. This poor uncle, full of patriotism, opened his mouth to hurrah, and a rocket went down his throat. Before that man could ask for a drink of water to quench that thing, it blew up and scattered him all, over the forty-five States, and—really, now, this is true—I know about it myself—twenty-four hours after that it was raining buttons, recognizable as his, on the Atlantic seaboard. A person cannot have a disaster like that and be entirely cheerful the rest of his life. I had another uncle, on an entirely different Fourth of July, who was blown up that way, and really it trimmed him as it would a tree. He had hardly a limb left on him anywhere. All we have left now is an expurgated edition of that uncle. But never mind about these things; they are merely passing matters. Don't let me make you sad.”

—from “Independence Day”, a speech made by Mark Twain July 4^th, 1907

I - wish - he - were - just - joking ...

Happy Fourth!

“I began to occupy my house on the 4^th of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed…”

—from Walden , by Henry David Thoreau

“Noiseless as a flower opening, a rocket burst above the hills. She sat up, watching the white stars curve and fall. Then BOOM! All the night air between her and the town, two and a half miles of it, trembled with the delayed report.

“…Another rocket seared across the sky at an angle and bloomed with hanging green balls. Another went up through the green shower and burst into an umbrella of red. Then three together, all white. Then one that winked hotly but did not flower. BOOM! Went the cushioning air. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

“…Above the town, streaks of smoke were lighted by the rocket bursts. Under the sodden booming she heard a continuous musketry of firecrackers, big and little. She could imagine the boys and drunken men who would be darting around through the crowds on the Capitol grounds throwing cannon crackers under the feet of tied horses and dressed-up girls, and into the buggies of the dignified.

“…And yet from a distance how beautiful! There was a colored mist all above the unseen city, as if the smoke of the explosions were now lighted by fires from below.”

—from Angle of Repose , by Wallace Stegner

Summertime: No pants required

A gratuitous re-post from last year, but with some new additions:

Book trends

So, what are we looking at here? No, it’s not a heart-beat—or maybe it is, in a way, come to think of it. What we’re looking at is the Google search trend for the phrase “The Great Gatsby.” This doesn’t reflect the raw number of searches, but rather a relative scale where 100 represents peak search activity and everything else is relative to that peak. I’m amazed, looking at this chart, that it’s so perfectly seasonal: low-points in June, July and August, and high points in March, April, May. Summer vacation and end-of-year exams, obviously.

I imagine any book regularly taught in highschools will follow the same kind of cyclical pattern. Here’s “Catcher in the Rye:”

Here’s “Romeo and Juliet:”

And here’s “Huckleberry Finn:”

What is the take-away from all of this? Well, some books are taught earlier in the year than others, based on their peak months, and we seem to be teaching less of them than we used to. And most importantly, if you want a big spike for your book you basically have two choices:  sell the rights to Hollywood (Gatsby), or die (Salinger).

William Faulkner, Geneologist

INTERVIEWER

Can you say how you started as a writer?

FAULKNER

I was living in New Orleans, doing whatever kind of work was necessary to earn a little money now and then. I met Sherwood Anderson. We would walk about the city in the afternoon and talk to people. In the evenings we would meet again and sit over a bottle or two while he talked and I listened. In the forenoon I would never see him. He was secluded, working. The next day we would repeat. I decided that if that was the life of a writer, then becoming a writer was the thing for me. So I began to write my first book. At once I found that writing was fun. I even forgot that I hadn't seen Mr. Anderson for three weeks until he walked in my door, the first time he ever came to see me, and said, “What's wrong? Are you mad at me?” I told him I was writing a book. He said, “My God,” and walked out. When I finished the book—it was Soldier's Pay—I met Mrs. Anderson on the street. She asked how the book was going, and I said I'd finished it. She said, “Sherwood says that he will make a trade with you. If he doesn't have to read your manuscript he will tell his publisher to accept it.” I said, “Done,” and that's how I became a writer.

INTERVIEWER

You must feel indebted to Sherwood Anderson, but how do you regard him as a writer?

FAULKNER

He was the father of my generation of American writers and the tradition of American writing which our successors will carry on. He has never received his proper evaluation. Dreiser is his older brother and Mark Twain the father of them both.

Mark Twain: 1909 (One year before he died)

Summertime: no pants required

First Line Friday!

Today we turn to that classic of classics, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But we’ll tackle it with a slight twist.

You see, I’d like my kids to read great books just as soon as they are able- maybe even a little before that. That’s why I find it hard to pass by the dollar section at Target anytime they’ve got Dalmatian Publishing Group’s Junior Classics available for a buck.

I picked up their version of Huck Finn, and thought I’d do a quick side-by-side comparison, just for giggles. Here’s what they say about their simplified abridgement:

This Junior Classic edition of Huckleberry Finn has been carefully condensed and adapted from the original version (which you really must read when you’re ready for every detail). We kept the well-known phrases for you. We kept Mark Twain’s style. And we kept the important imagery and heart of the tale.

Well, let’s put them to the test. Below are the NOTICE, EXPLANATORY and first line of Twain’s original:

NOTICE

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, 

Per G. G., Chief of Ordinance. 

EXPLANATORY

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect;  the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

THE AUTHOR

 “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that aint no matter.”

And now, DPG’s version:

NOTICE

This tale has no reason,  

No lesson can be found. 

If you want a moral,

Quick! Put this story down!

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR

  EXPLANATORY

~missing~

 “Unless you’ve read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (which I hope you have), you don’t know me.”

I don’t know. If you ask me, the second you strip Huck Finn of its dialects, you strip it of its very soul. Am I wrong?