Posted on 05/30/2023 10:06:19 AM PDT by ebb tide
“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 needed no preparation and got none.” —Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc is perhaps the finest novel ever to have been written by an American. It’s a book with the power to change the lives of its readers. Yet I’m typically greeted with a surprised look, whenever I mention it to friends, over having strung together the names “Joan of Arc” and “Mark Twain” so closely in the same sentence. The greatest work penned by the man who is widely considered to be America’s greatest-ever author remains obscure today.
Mark Twain himself had initially insisted upon anonymity while the book was first being published in serialized installments in Harper’s Magazine, in hopes that that way the public would take it more seriously.
I’d purchased my own copy of Joan of Arc before a vacation, some months back, knowing that I’d soon be having plenty of reading time while on airplanes and buses. At the time of this purchase, my interest in reading a book written by Mark Twain, rather than about St. Joan of Arc, was greater. My interest in the life and character of St. Joan grew with every page.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
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I love Mark Twain, but have never read this one. And it just so happens I was going to order some books today...
I already am a saint.
Thriftbooks.com has Twain’s The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. Vols. 1 & 2.
Actual title: Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte (Twain tells it from de Conte prospective). On Kindle, it’s 99-cents.
Twain said he spent several months in France doing research on the way he’d tell the story.
Hefty book, 452 pages.
Every Englishman sings and memorized Agincourt the same way we sing about Midway. But they tend to shut up about anything OTHER than Agincourt when it comes to the Hundred Years War.
The French won over the English because a certain French teenager who talked to God turned the tides of war. She truly is a God-send.
I have read a lot of Twain, but not that one. Adding it to my summer reading list.
First published with a byline of the "translator" though the ruse to conceal the name of the author didn't last more than a few months.
Thank you! It can be read free here and I certainly plan to!
https://archive.org/details/completeworksofm17twai/page/n5/mode/2up
Great book.
That didn’t take long.
Can we make this a Catholic Caucus?
If it helps you to feel safe, then you should have your “safe space.”
Of course that was before the calendar reform of 1582--May 30 in 1431 would be equivalent of June 9 in the Gregorian calendar.
I thought Mark Twain was an unapologetic atheist.
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