Tag: Mark Twain

Jan 05 2011

Fighting Intolerance Requires Trusting Other People

An English professor at Auburn University Montgomery (Alabama) has recently sparked a firestorm of criticism for his decision to edit two Mark Twain classics.  Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both read by generations of schoolchildren, contain frequent usage of racially insensitive language.  However, they are also products of their time.  The books were written by an author who used dialogue authentic to the period, as objectionable as it is to us in this day.  The controversy among Twain scholars and the general public has been substantial.  But until recently, the professor held a completely different attitude altogether.

Jan 04 2011

Banned Books: Editing Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain’s classic novel, was initially published in 1884.  And it has survived as an important book for more than a century without ever being edited.  For offensiveness.  Or more specifically to eliminate offensive, racist words.  At least until now.

Today NPR reports that a “New Edition Of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ Will Eliminate Offensive Words”:

May 21 2010

The River…”The Body of the Nation”

Mark Twain called the basin of the Mississippi River, “The Body of the Nation.” It gathers slowly in the upper midwest. It is fed from a remarkable number of rivers and a remarkable number of states. It winds its way though the center, through the very soul of our country. There are countless stories and mythologies and poems written in homage to this beautiful languid body of water. There are lives who live and breathe because the river flows. There are whole ecosystems depending on the great artery to bring them life.



Earth Observatory…NASA

Dec 12 2009

Mark Twain on War and Peace

Mark Twain Pictures, Images and Photos

The Anti-Imperialist League was founded in 1889 as an opposition group, intended to counter what was then seen as an imperialistic approach toward Cuba and the Phillipines.  

After the Spanish-American War (April-August, 1898), the Treaty of Paris, finalized in December, 1898, granted the United States control over Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico.  

Jan 26 2008

“The Suffrage Was Become A Mere Machine”

Mark Twain, among his many other gifts, seems to have been something of a seer.

While perusing a collection titled The Bible According to Mark Twain (primarily devoted to excoriating the god of Abraham), I came across an unpublished piece of Twain’s, written in 1901, that seems to perfectly encapsulate the state of the nation, as we prepare to move from the reigns of George I, Clinton I, and George II, to that of Clinton II.

Twain’s text below the fold: