Mark Twain and Money

Language, Capital, and Culture

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Biography & Memoir, Literary
Cover of the book Mark Twain and Money by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe, University of Alabama Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe ISBN: 9780817390877
Publisher: University of Alabama Press Publication: August 15, 2017
Imprint: University Alabama Press Language: English
Author: Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
ISBN: 9780817390877
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Publication: August 15, 2017
Imprint: University Alabama Press
Language: English

This groundbreaking volume explores the importance of economics and prosperity throughout Samuel Clemens’s writing and personal life.

Mark Twain and Money: Language, Capital, and Culture focuses on an overlooked feature of the story of one of America’s most celebrated writers. Investigating Samuel Clemens’s often conflicting but insightful views on the roles of money in American culture and identity, this collection of essays shows how his fascination with the complexity of nineteenth-century economics informs much of Mark Twain’s writing.
 
While most readers are familiar with Mark Twain the worldly wise writer, fewer are acquainted with Samuel Clemens the avid businessman. Throughout his life, he sought to strike it rich, whether mining for silver in Nevada, founding his own publishing company, or staking out ownership in the Paige typesetting machine. He was ever on the lookout for investment schemes and was intrigued by inventions, his own and those of others, that he imagined would net a windfall. Conventional wisdom has held that Clemens’s obsession with business and material wealth hindered his ability to write more and better books. However, this perspective fails to recognize how his interest in economics served as a rich source of inspiration for his literary creativity and is inseparable from his achievements as a writer. In fact, without this preoccupation with monetary success, Henry B. Wonham and Lawrence Howe argue, Twain’s writing would lack an important connection to a cornerstone of American culture.
 
The contributors to this volume examine a variety of topics, such as a Clemens family myth of vast landholdings, Clemens’s strategies for protecting the Mark Twain brand, his insights into rapidly evolving nineteenth-century financial practices, the persistence of patronage in the literary marketplace, the association of manhood and monetary success, Clemens’s attitude and actions toward poverty, his response to the pains of bankruptcy through writing, and the intersection of racial identity and economics in American culture. These illuminating essays show how pecuniary matters invigorate a wide range of Twain’s writing from The Gilded Age, *Roughing It,*The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, to later stories like “The £1,000,000 Banknote” and the Autobiography.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This groundbreaking volume explores the importance of economics and prosperity throughout Samuel Clemens’s writing and personal life.

Mark Twain and Money: Language, Capital, and Culture focuses on an overlooked feature of the story of one of America’s most celebrated writers. Investigating Samuel Clemens’s often conflicting but insightful views on the roles of money in American culture and identity, this collection of essays shows how his fascination with the complexity of nineteenth-century economics informs much of Mark Twain’s writing.
 
While most readers are familiar with Mark Twain the worldly wise writer, fewer are acquainted with Samuel Clemens the avid businessman. Throughout his life, he sought to strike it rich, whether mining for silver in Nevada, founding his own publishing company, or staking out ownership in the Paige typesetting machine. He was ever on the lookout for investment schemes and was intrigued by inventions, his own and those of others, that he imagined would net a windfall. Conventional wisdom has held that Clemens’s obsession with business and material wealth hindered his ability to write more and better books. However, this perspective fails to recognize how his interest in economics served as a rich source of inspiration for his literary creativity and is inseparable from his achievements as a writer. In fact, without this preoccupation with monetary success, Henry B. Wonham and Lawrence Howe argue, Twain’s writing would lack an important connection to a cornerstone of American culture.
 
The contributors to this volume examine a variety of topics, such as a Clemens family myth of vast landholdings, Clemens’s strategies for protecting the Mark Twain brand, his insights into rapidly evolving nineteenth-century financial practices, the persistence of patronage in the literary marketplace, the association of manhood and monetary success, Clemens’s attitude and actions toward poverty, his response to the pains of bankruptcy through writing, and the intersection of racial identity and economics in American culture. These illuminating essays show how pecuniary matters invigorate a wide range of Twain’s writing from The Gilded Age, *Roughing It,*The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, to later stories like “The £1,000,000 Banknote” and the Autobiography.

More books from University of Alabama Press

Cover of the book The Politics of the Superficial by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book Alone in Mexico by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book Central America, 1821-1871 by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book The Kishinev Ghetto, 1941–1942 by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book The Voice of the River by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book Theatre Symposium, Vol. 23 by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book Nietzsche's Kisses by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book G Company's War by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book The Naval Air War in Korea by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book Theatre History Studies 2014, Vol. 33 by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book Money and Modernity by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book In the Trenches with Jesus and Marx by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book Sing Them Over Again to Me by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
Cover of the book Miles of Stare by Henry B. Wonham, Lawrence Howe, Judith Yaross Lee, Mark Schiebe, Ann M. Ryan, Gregg Camfield, Joseph Csicsila, Susanne Weil, M. Christine Benner Dixon, Sharon McCoy, Jonathan Hayes, Jeffery W. Miller, Lawrence Howe
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy