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The following review appeared 6 March 2005 on the Mark Twain Forum.
Copyright © 2005 Mark Twain Forum
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The Portable Mark Twain edited by Tom Quirk is the first major overhaul of this classic anthology since Bernard DeVoto first compiled it for Viking Press in 1946. DeVoto, who became the second editor of the Mark Twain Papers in 1938--a year after Albert Bigelow Paine died, chose to emphasize Twain's general and profound satire rather than his humor in the 1946 edition. While The Portable Mark Twain has gone through many cosmetic changes over the years, the only substantive change, before now, was John Seelye's addition of a bibliography during the 1960s.
Tom Quirk, Professor of English at University of Missouri, Columbia has served as editor of numerous Penguin Classic editions. His new edition of this old classic takes advantage of over fifty years of intervening scholarship. Quirk has added new material, deleted old material and as Professor Louis J. Budd writes in a puff for the volume, "put state-of-the-art wheels, styling, and accessories on this pacesetter of Mark Twain anthologies."
Quirk's goal for the book was to present an anthology that touched upon all phases of Twain's work, including his humor. Both DeVoto and Quirk provide their readers with an extensive introduction to Twain's life and his career. However, after his introduction, DeVoto basically exits the scene and leaves his readers to explore and experience Twain on their own. Quirk, on the other hand, serves as an unobtrusive and valued guide throughout the volume by providing his readers with notes on sources for texts; suggestions for further reading; headnotes or mini-introductions to each section of the book; a brief chronology of Twain's life; and a thumbnail sketch of correspondents to whom Twain wrote letters. All are welcome additions and representative of information that educators, scholars and students have come to value.
Both the old and new edition of Portable Mark Twain are out of the starting gate with a version of the jumping frog story. But after a similar start, content differences abound. DeVoto's edition virtually ignores Twain's early humorous sketches and such major works as Roughing It, The Innocents Abroad, and The Gilded Age. Quirk's edition ignores none of these. The new Portable Mark Twain now includes such contrasting sketches as Twain's "An Encounter with an Interviewer" written in 1874 and "A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It," also published in 1874. The new edition now includes "The Story of the Old Ram" and "Buck Fanshaw's Funeral" from Roughing It; "At the Tomb of Adam" from The Innocents Abroad; and "Colonel Sellers Entertains Washington Hawkins" from The Gilded Age. DeVoto's edition includes"Jim Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn" from A Tramp Abroad as does Quirk's who also adds "The Hair Trunk" passage from the same work.
DeVoto's volume includes a greater amount of material from Life on the Mississippi. Quirk's selections are fewer from this work, but he showcases "Sunrise on the River" from Chapter 30 and "The House Beautiful" from Chapter 38 and encourages his readers to compare these passages to similar passages that can be found in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Both the DeVoto and Quirk editions include the complete first edition text of Huckleberry Finn along with the "raftsman" passage which was intended for the first edition but later deleted. Quirk does not incorporate any changes to the text that have been made by the latest University of California editions of Huckleberry Finn. For example, the misnamed "Bessie Thatcher" can still be found in Chapter Eight. Both editions have samplings from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Quirk's edition of Portable Mark Twain retains "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed." His introduction emphasizes the differences between the known fact and fiction of the story and points out that it is inaccurate to claim that Sam Clemens was a Confederate soldier--a clarification which is no doubt a nod to Terrell Dempsey's research published in Searching for Jim (University of Missouri Press, 2003).
Quirk offers "Extracts from Adam's Diary." DeVoto does not. DeVoto offers "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses." Quirk does not. Both editions feature "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" and "Corn Pone Opinions." "The War Prayer" and "Civic Virtue" have been dropped from Quirk's edition. Both editions feature a similar passage from Twain's Autobiography and collections of maxims from Pudd'nhead Wilson and Following the Equator. Quirk also includes a passage from Chapter 21 of Following the Equator which he titles "Decimating the Savages" to illustrate Twain's growing tendency toward his future anti-imperialism stance. Quirk's edition features five speeches and sixteen letters. DeVoto ignores Twain's speeches and features twenty-eight letters. While some letters are the same, most are different. Quirk's edition includes one letter from Sam Clemens to Susan Crane that has been provided courtesy of the Mark Twain House in Hartford and will be new to many scholars. For other letters, obtaining public domain texts for the new edition was a priority and that most likely explains the disappearance of such long-time favorites as Clemens's "Letter to the Gas Company" written in February 1891. However, all is not lost--the Gas Company letter can now be found in Mark Twain's Helpful Hints for Good Living (University of California Press, 2004).
So, the larger question remains--with all the new material in Quirk's edition, what has been eliminated or dropped? The first edition text of The Mysterious Stranger, published in 1916 after Twain's death, and "The United States of Lyncherdom" are the two most obvious missing pieces. If DeVoto was ever aware that his version of The Mysterious Stranger (the astrologer version) was bowdlerized and had been tampered with by his predecessor Paine, he never gives a hint of it in his edition of this printing. The first full extent of the "editorial intervention" was not made public until 1963. Terry Oggel's research on the tampering of the texts by Paine of "The United States of Lyncherdom" was only publicized within the last few years. (See the Forum review of Oggel's article at: http://www.twainweb.net/reviews/lyncherdom.html). Quirk has made wise and judicious decisions in eliminating and rejecting further use of these two texts.Overall, the new edition of The Portable Mark Twain is a positive and worthwhile endeavor that should serve educators and students well.
A comprehensive comparison chart of both editions is included below.
|
Feature
|
DeVoto
edition
|
Quirk
edition
|
| First published |
1946
|
2004
|
| Page count |
viii
+ 790
|
xlix + 579
|
| Dimensions |
7
x 4.25 x 1.25"
|
7.7
x 5.8 x 1.1"
|
| Introduction |
 |
|
| Suggestions for further reading |
-
|
|
| Notes on sources of texts |
-
|
|
| Chronlogy of Sam Clemens's life |
-
|
|
| Headnotes for "Tales and Sketches" |
-
|
|
| Jumping Frog story (1865) |
"The
Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"
|
"The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"
|
| "How I Edited an Agricultural Journal Once" (1870) |
-
|
|
| "The Story of the Old Ram" (from Ch. 53, Roughing It, 1872) |
-
|
|
| "Buck Fanshaw's Funeral" (from Ch. 47, Roughing It, 1872) |
-
|
|
| "Letters from Greely" with illustration (from Ch. 70, Roughing It, 1872) |
-
|
|
| "An Encounter with an Interviewer" (1874) |
-
|
|
| "A True Story" (1874) |
-
|
|
| Headnotes for The Innocents Abroad |
-
|
|
| "The Sea of Galilee" (from Ch. 48, The Innocents Abroad, 1869) |
-
|
|
| "At the Tomb of Adam" (from Ch. 53, The Innocents Abroad, 1869) |
-
|
|
| Headnotes for The Gilded Age |
-
|
|
| "Colonel Sellers Entertains Washington Hawkin" (from Ch. 7, The Gilded Age, 1873) |
-
|
|
| Headnotes for A Tramp Abroad |
-
|
|
| "Jim Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn" (from Ch. 2, A Tramp Abroad, 1880) |
|
|
| "The Hair Trunk" (from Ch. 48, A Tramp Abroad, 1880) |
-
|
|
| Headnotes for Life on the Mississippi |
-
|
|
| "The River and Its History (Ch. 1, Life on the Mississippi, 1883) |
-
|
|
| "The Boy's Ambition" (Ch. 4, Life on the Mississippi, 1883) |
|
|
| Chapters 5, 6, 7 from Life on the Mississippi (1883) |
|
-
|
| "Perplexing Lessons" (Ch. 8, Life on the Mississippi, 1883) |
|
|
| "Continued Perplexities" (Ch. 9, Life on the Mississippi, 1883) |
|
|
| Chapters 10, 11, 12, 13 from Life on the Mississippi (1883) |
|
-
|
| "Sunrise on the River" (from Ch. 30, Life on the Mississippi, 1883) |
-
|
|
| "The House Beautiful" (from Ch. 38, Life on the Mississippi, 1883) |
-
|
|
| Headnotes for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
-
|
|
| Complete first edition text of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) including "raftsmen" passage |
|
|
| Headnotes for "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" |
-
|
|
| "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" (1885) |
|
+ map |
| Headnotes for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
-
|
|
| "The Yankee in Search of Adventures" (from Ch. 11 and 12, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889) |
-
|
|
| "Freemen" (Ch. 13, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889) |
|
-
|
| "A Royal Banquet" (Ch. 17, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889) |
|
-
|
| "The Holy Fountain" (Ch. 22, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889) |
|
partial
chapter |
| "Restoration of the Fountain" (Ch. 23, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889) |
|
-
|
| "The Yankee's Fight with the Knights" (from Ch. 39, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889) |
|
-
|
| Headnotes for "Extracts from Adam's Diary" |
-
|
|
| "Extracts from Adam's Diary," 1893 |
-
|
|
| "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" |
|
-
|
| Headnotes for The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and Following the Equator |
-
|
|
| Maxims from "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894) |
35
maxims
|
38
maxims
|
| Maxims from Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" (1897) |
67
maxims
|
74
maxims
|
| "Decimating the Savages" (from Ch. 21 Following the Equator, 1897) |
-
|
|
| "Purchasing Civic Virtue (from Mark Twain in Eruption, 1940) |
|
-
|
| Headnotes for "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" |
-
|
|
| "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" |
from
Europe and Elsewhere, 1923
|
from
North American Review, 1901
|
| Headnotes for "Corn-Pone Opinions" |
-
|
|
| "Corn-Pone Opinions" (from Europe and Elsewhere, 1923) |
|
|
| "The War Prayer" (from Europe and Elsewhere, 1923) |
|
-
|
| "The United States of Lyncherdom" (from Europe and Elsewhere, 1923) |
|
-
|
| Headnotes for "Early Days" from Mark Twain's Autobiography |
-
|
|
| "Early Days" |
from
Paine's edition of Mark Twain's Autobiography, 1924
|
from
North American Review, March 1907
|
| The Mysterious Stranger, 1916 (bowdlerized version) |
|
-
|
| Headnotes for Mark Twain's speeches |
-
|
|
| Speech: "Farewell Banquet for Bayard Taylor" (speech, April 4, 1878) |
-
|
|
| Speech: "Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims" (speech December 22, 1881) |
-
|
|
| Speech: "Advice to Youth" (speech April 15, 1882) |
-
|
|
| Speech: "The Alphabet and Simplified Spelling" (speech December 9, 1907) |
-
|
|
| Speech: "Education and Citizenship" (speech May 14, 1908) |
-
|
|
|
Headnotes
for Mark Twain's letters
|
-
|
|
|
Letter:
SLC to Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, January 20, 1866
|
-
|
|
|
Letter:
SLC to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, January 28, 1871
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to W. D. Howells, December 8, 1874
|
-
|
|
|
Letter:
SLC to W. D. Howells, December 18, 1874
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to W. D. Howells, November 23, 1875
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to W. D. Howells, August 9, 1876
|
-
|
|
|
Letter:
SLC to J. H. Burrough, November 1, 1876
|
|
|
|
Letter:
SLC to Joseph Twichell, January 26, 1879
|
|
|
|
Letter:
SLC to W. D. Howells, November 17, 1879
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to Orion Clemens and family, July 21, 1883
|
-
|
with illustration |
|
Letter:
SLC to unidentified, about William Gillette, September 19, 1883
|
-
|
|
|
Letter:
SLC to W. D. Howells, May 24, 1884
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to W. D. Howells, February 27, 1885
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to Frank A. Nichols, March 1885
|
|
|
|
Letter:
SLC to unidentified, November 6, 1886
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to Jeannette Gilder (unmailed), May 14, 1887
|
+ notes added 22 years later |
|
|
Letter:
SLC to W. D. Howells, August 22, 1887
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to Orion Clemens, November 29, 1888
|
|
-
|
|
Letter:
SLC to Orion Clemens, January 5, 1889
|
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to Andrew Lang, early 1890 |
|
|
| Fragment of Letter: SLC to unidentified, 1890/1891 |
|
|
| Letter: SLC to the Gas Company, February 12, 1891 |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to Joseph Twichell, May 1892 |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to Susan Crane, March 19, 1893 |
-
|
|
| Letter: SLC to Henry Rogers, October 1894 |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to W. D. Howells, January 22, 1898 |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to Major "Jack" Downing, February 26, 1899 |
-
|
|
| Letter: SLC to W. D. Howells, April 2, 1899 |
-
|
|
| Letter: SLC to W. D. Howells, January 25 and 26, 1900 |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to Andrew Carnegie, undated |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to Joseph Twichell, February 1902 |
-
|
|
| Letter: SLC to Helene Picard, February 22, 1902 |
-
|
|
| Letter: SLC to W. D. Howells, February 13, 1903 |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to Robert Fulton, May 24, 1905 |
-
|
|
| Letter: SLC to Editor of the New York Times, signed as W. D. Howells, October 4, 1907 |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to W. D. Howells, January 18, 1909 |
|
-
|
| Letter: SLC to J. Wylie Smith, August 7, 1909 |
|
-
|
| Bibliography by John Seelye |
|
-
|
| Biographical List of Correspondents |
-
|
|