Biographies of America's greatest humorist abound, but none have charted the overall influence of the key male friendships that profoundly informed his life and work. Combining biography, literary history, and gender studies, Mark Twain and Male Friendship presents a welcome new perspective as it examines three vastly different friendships and the stamp they left on Samuel Clemens's life. With accessible prose informed by impressive research, the study provides an illuminating history of the friendships it explores, and the personal and cultural dynamic of the relationships. In the case of Twain and his pastor, Joseph Twichell, emphasis is put on the latter's role as mentor and spiritual advisor and on Twain's own waning sense of religious belonging. Messent then shifts gears to consider Twain's friendship with fellow author and collaborator William Dean Howells. Fascinating in its own right, this relationship also serves as a prism through which to view the literary marketplace of nineteenth-century America. A third, seemingly unlikely friendship between Twain and Standard Oil executive H.H. Rogers focuses on Twain's attitude toward business and shows how Rogers and his wife served as a surrogate family for the novelist after the death of his own wife. As he charts these relationships, Messent uses existing work on male friendship, gender roles, and cultural change as a framework in which to situate altered conceptions of masculinity and of men's roles, not just in marriage but in the larger social networks of their time. In sum, Mark Twain and Male Friendship is not only a valuable new resource on the great novelist but also a lively cultural history of male friendship in nineteenth-century America.

Mark Twain and Male Friendship: The Twichell, Howells, and Rogers Friendships

Biographies & Memoirs

Messent, Peter

Arts & Literature

Oxford University Press

Biographies of America's greatest humorist abound, but none have charted the overall influence of the key male friendships that profoundly informed his life and work. Combining biography, literary history, and gender studies, Mark Twain and Male Friendship presents a welcome new perspective as it examines three vastly different friendships and the stamp they left on Samuel Clemens's life.With accessible prose informed by impressive research, the study provides an illuminating history of the friendships it explores, and the personal and cultural dynamic of the relationships. In the case of Twain and his pastor, Joseph Twichell, emphasis is put on the latter's role as mentor and spiritual advisor and on Twain's own waning sense of religious belonging. Messent then shifts gears to consider Twain's friendship with fellow author and collaborator William Dean Howells. Fascinating in its own right, this relationship also serves as a prism through which to view the literary marketplace of nineteenth-century America. A third, seemingly unlikely friendship between Twain and Standard Oil executive H.H. Rogers focuses on Twain's attitude toward business and shows how Rogers and his wife served as a surrogate family for the novelist after the death of his own wife.As he charts these relationships, Messent uses existing work on male friendship, gender roles, and cultural change as a framework in which to situate altered conceptions of masculinity and of men's roles, not just in marriage but in the larger social networks of their time. In sum, Mark Twain and Male Friendship is not only a valuable new resource on the great novelist but also a lively cultural history of male friendship in nineteenth-century America.

Mark Twain (Palgrave Modern Novelists)

Literature & Fiction

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

This book provides an overview of Mark Twain's work and a close critical analysis of the forms and themes of his major texts. The author uses recent cultural and literary theory to re-examine Twain's travel writing and fiction, writing in a jargon-free and accessible manner. He focuses on Twain's humour and his attitudes to such subjects as boyhood, nationality, race relations, technology, and capitalist expansion, and shows how his work reflects anxieties both about changes in the social and industrial order in post Civil-War America and the status of the individual within it.

Mark Twain (Modern Novelists)

History & Criticism

Red Globe Press

The Crime Fiction Handbook

The Crime Fiction Handbook presents a comprehensiveintroduction to the origins, development, and cultural significanceof the crime fiction genre, focusing mainly on American British,and Scandinavian texts. Provides an accessible and well-written introduction to thegenre of crime fictionMoves with ease between a general overview of the genre anduseful theoretical approachesIncludes a close analysis of the key texts in the crime fictiontraditionIdentifies what makes crime fiction of such cultural importanceand illuminates the social and political anxieties at itsheart.Shows the similarities and differences between British,American, and Scandinavian crime fiction traditions 

Wiley/Blackwell

The Crime Fiction Handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the origins, development, and cultural significance of the crime fiction genre, focusing mainly on American British, and Scandinavian texts. <ul>
<li>Provides an accessible and well-written introduction to the genre of crime fiction</li> <li>Moves with ease between a general overview of the genre and useful theoretical approaches</li> <li>Includes a close analysis of the key texts in the crime fiction tradition</li> <li>Identifies what makes crime fiction of such cultural importance and illuminates the social and political anxieties at its heart.</li> <li>Shows the similarities and differences between British, American, and Scandinavian crime fiction traditions</li> </ul>

Mark Twain is a central figure in nineteenth-century American literature, and his novels are among the best-known and most often studied texts in the field. This clear and incisive Introduction provides a biography of the author and situates his works in the historical and cultural context of his times. Peter Messent gives accessible but penetrating readings of the best-known writings including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He pays particular attention to the way Twain's humour works and how it underpins his prose style. The final chapter provides up-to-date analysis of the recent critical reception of Twain's writing, and summarises the contentious and important debates about his literary and cultural position. The guide to further reading will help those who wish to extend their research and critical work on the author. This book will be of outstanding value to anyone coming to Twain for the first time.

The Cambridge Introduction to Mark Twain (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)

Cambridge University Press

Mark Twain is a central figure in nineteenth-century American literature, and his novels are among the best-known and most often studied texts in the field. This clear and incisive Introduction provides a biography of the author and situates his works in the historical and cultural context of his times. Peter Messent gives accessible but penetrating readings of the best-known writings including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He pays particular attention to the way Twain's humour works and how it underpins his prose style. The final chapter provides up-to-date analysis of the recent critical reception of Twain's writing, and summarises the contentious and important debates about his literary and cultural position. The guide to further reading will help those who wish to extend their research and critical work on the author. This book will be of outstanding value to anyone coming to Twain for the first time.

The 1990s have seen significant and radical additions to American crime fiction, as the genre has mutated from Chandleresque traditions to a postmodernist fiction, marked especially by the collapse of the "safe" and distinct categories of criminal, detective and reader. This volume takes this collapse as a starting point and looks at how detective fiction in the US now operates from many different cultural and regional perspectives. The contributors examine the proliferation of subgenres, such as police and court procedures, and consider how this kind of writing taps into contemporary concerns on question of race, justice, oppression and gender.

CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

United States

Pluto Press

Between 1867, when The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches was published, and the appearance in 1906 of The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories, seven major collections of short works appeared under the name Mark Twain. It has long been held that in most cases Twain had little to do with assembling these books, viewing them mainly as moneymaking ventures and leaving the work largely to others. In the first full and sustained study of the collections ever to appear, Peter Messent argues to the contrary. Exploring the publication history of the volumes as well as a wealth of primary documents, Messent demonstrates that Twain's part in the making of these books was, in fact, considerable. Reading the collections of short works as well as individual tales alongside his novels, Messent discusses Twain's development as an artist in terms of the changing emphases that mark his use of different forms and themes, and the changing modes of humor that he employed.

The Short Works of Mark Twain: A Critical Study

University of Pennsylvania Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Messent, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Messent, Peter

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Messent, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mark Twain and Male Friendship: The Twichell, Howells, and Rogers Friendships

Mark Twain and Male Friendship: The Twichell, Howells, and Rogers Friendships

Mark Twain (Palgrave Modern Novelists)

Mark Twain (Modern Novelists)

The Crime Fiction Handbook

The Crime Fiction Handbook

The Cambridge Introduction to Mark Twain (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)

The Cambridge Introduction to Mark Twain (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)

CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

The Short Works of Mark Twain: A Critical Study