Metaphor theory, observes John Bird, is like Mark Twain: both seem simple upon first introduction. Now, in the most complete study to date of Twain's use of figurative language, a veteran Twain scholar tackles the core of his writing and explores it with theoretical approaches that have rarely been applied to Twain, providing new insights into how he imagined his world--and the singular ways in which he expressed himself.
From "The Jumping Frog" to the late dream narratives, Bird considers Twain's metaphoric construction over his complete career and especially sheds new light on...
Metaphor theory, observes John Bird, is like Mark Twain: both seem simple upon first introduction. Now, in the most complete study to date of Twai...
In Hatching Ruin, Charles H. Gold provides a complete description of Samuel L. Clemens's business relationships with Charles L. Webster and James W. Paige during the 1880s. Gold analyzes how these relationships affected Clemens as a person and an artist, most notably in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The 1880s were a time when Samuel Clemens was more businessman than author. Clemens wanted to be rich. From an early age, he had dreamed of wealth. Suspicious of his previous publisher, Clemens started a publishing company and placed Charles L. Webster, who was married to his niece,...
In Hatching Ruin, Charles H. Gold provides a complete description of Samuel L. Clemens's business relationships with Charles L. Webster and James W. P...
Huckleberry Finn dressing as a girl is a famously comic scene in Mark Twain's novel but hardly out of character--for the author, that is. Twain troubled gender in much of his otherwise traditional fiction, depicting children whose sexual identities are switched at birth, tomboys, same-sex married couples, and even a male French painter who impersonates his own fictive sister and becomes engaged to another man.This book explores Mark Twain's extensive use of cross-dressing across his career by exposing the substantial cast of characters who masqueraded as members of the opposite sex or who...
Huckleberry Finn dressing as a girl is a famously comic scene in Mark Twain's novel but hardly out of character--for the author, that is. Twain troubl...
Cosmopolitan Twain takes seriouslyMark Twain's life as a citizen of urban landscapes: from the streets of New York City to the palaces of Vienna to the suburban utopia of Hartford. Traditional readings of Mark Twain orient his life and work by distinctly rural markers such as the Mississippi River, the Wild West, and small-town America; yet, as this collection shows, Twain's sensibilities were equally formed in the urban centers of the world. These essays represent Twain both as a product of urban frontiers and as a prophet of American modernity, situating him squarely within the context of...
Cosmopolitan Twain takes seriouslyMark Twain's life as a citizen of urban landscapes: from the streets of New York City to the palaces of Vienna to th...