A fascinating collection of essays brings the founding father of American humor—Mark Twain—to life through the rich visual context of his time: books, documents, and ephemera..
A First-Class Fool: Mark Twain and Humor. Featuring the Collection of Susan Jaffe Tane
Link to book at U. Press
Hardcover
ISBN: 9781605831107
Pub Date: January 15, 2025
Publisher: The Grolier Club
256 pages | 325 color plates | 8 x 10.5
A First-Class Fool examines Samuel Clemens’s emergence as a humorist and how “Mark Twain” continues to influence humor to this day. The story is richly illustrated with numerous books, manuscripts, art, photographs, and other rare materials from Susan Jaffe Tane’s private Mark Twain collection, including many heretofore unpublished pieces.
Table of Contents
Preface, by Susan Jaffe Tane
Introduction, by Susan Jaffe Tane, Julie Carlsen, Gabriel Mckee
Introduction to the Essays, by Kevin Mac Donnell
“Jim Smiley’s Jumping Frog” and Mark Twain’s Leap to Fame, by Joe B. Fulton
Mark Twain’s Literature for Younger Readers, by John Bird
Mark Twain’s Audiences and Voices, by David E. E. Sloane
Mark Twain’s Journalism, by Benjamin Griffin
“Yrs Truly, SLC”: Mark Twain’s Letters, by Barbara E. Snedecor
Twain on Stage: Lectures and Speeches, by Mark Dawidziak
Mark Twain Abroad: Travel Writing, by Alan Gribben
Mark Twain Commodified, by Judith Yaross Lee
The Western Experience, by James E. Caron
Twain’s Autobiography and Other Nonfiction, by R. Kent Rasmussen
Mark Twain Influenced; Mark Twain, Influencer, by Kevin Mac Donnell
Our Wild Indians: A Writer’s Sourcebook, by Kerry Driscoll
Banning, Editing, and Censoring Huckleberry Finn, by Nichole Misako Nomura
Mark Twain at Play, by Gabriel Mckee
What’s in a Name?: Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain, by Julie Carlsen
Humorous Highlights from the Mark Twain Collection of Susan Jaffe Tane, by Julie Carlsen and Gabriel Mckee