Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
| Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc |
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 First edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Mark Twain |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | alternate history |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
| Publication date | 1896 [1] |
| Media type | Print (hardcover, paperback) |
| Pages | 260 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Pudd'nhead Wilson |
| Followed by | The Mysterious Stranger |
Mark Twain's work on Joan of Arc is titled in full, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte, who is identified further as Joan's page and secretary. The fictional work is presented as a translation from a manuscript by Jean Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, "Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France".
Originally, Twain's work was published as a serialization in Harper's Magazine beginning in 1895 and it was published in book form during 1896. Because the copyright has expired, the work is in the public domain, and may be found for free on the Internet. The most current edition of the book has been published by Ignatius Press since 1989, and it also contains an essay by Mark Twain entitled Saint Joan of Arc in an appendix.
The "de Conte" work is a fictionalized version of that of Joan of Arc's page, Louis de Contes, providing narrative unity to the story. de Conte is presented as an individual who was with Joan during the three major phases of her life - as a youth in Domrémy, as the commander of the army of Charles VII of France on military campaign, and as a defendant at her trial in Rouen. The book is presented as a translation of material by Alden among de Conte's memoirs, which were written in his later years for the benefit of his descendants.
The work was penned under a pseudonym, a second one for the author, Mark Twain being one as well for Samuel Clemens. Twain based his descriptions of Joan of Arc on his daughter, Susy Clemens, as he remembered her at the age of seventeen.[2]
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[edit] Reception
I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others need no preparation and got none.
— Mark Twain
The author had a personal fascination with Joan of Arc. The work has a very different feel and flow from Twain's other works. There is a distinct lack of humor, so prevalent in his other works. This is a mature Twain, writing about a subject of personal interest to him.
Twain considered this, his last finished novel, to be his best and most important work, a view not shared by critics then or since. Iconoclastic author George Bernard Shaw, in the preface to his own play, Saint Joan, accuses Twain of being "infatuated" with Joan of Arc. Shaw says that Twain "romanticizes" the story of Joan, reproducing a legend that the English conducted a trial deliberately rigged to find Joan guilty of witchcraft and heresy. Recent scholarship of the trial transcripts, however, suggests that Twain's belief may have been closer to the truth than Shaw was willing to accept.[3]
[edit] References
- Ward, Geoffrey C., Duncan, Dayton, and Burns, Ken, (2001). Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40561-5.
[edit] Notes and sources
- ^ Facsimile of the original 1st edition.
- ^ Ward Duncan and Burns (2001), p. 159
- ^ Joan of Arc: Her Story, by Regine Pérnoud and Marie-Véronique Clin, translated by Jeremy Duquesnay Adams, published by St. Martin's Griffin (New York, 1999) ISBN 0-312-22730-2
[edit] External links
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Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain - an online version from the Internet History Sourcebooks Project
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and Mark Twain's essay on Joan of Arc Online
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 by Mark Twain - an online version from Project Gutenberg
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 2 by Mark Twain - an online version from Project Gutenberg
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Volumes 1 & 2 by Mark Twain - an online audiobook version from LibriVox
