The image and the woman in the life and writings of Mark Twain.

Abstract

This is a study which began very simply and grew increasingly complex as it grew. Two papers, one on Twain's love letters and one on controversy which rages around the extent to which Twain's wife censored his writings, led to the idea of an examination of Twain's attitudes toward women and how the women in his life affected his writing. Originally it was supposed that this influence was external; that is, that Twain's women, particularly his wife, caused him to alter his works to suit their own moral and social standards. It did not take long to find that this was almost wholly untrue. Far from being the pious and pedantic destroyers of talent that so many have imagined they were, Twain's women turned out to be, in the main, beneficent and helpful believers in the talents of Mark Twain. The idea that much of Twain's writing is bad because external censorship made it that way 1-18S shown to be quite fradulent.