Samuel Clemens in Buffalo: A Woman and an Artist Essay -- Samuel Cleme

Samuel Clemens in cow A Woman and an ArtistPrefaceWhile literary critics and historians analogous have thoroughly examined the influence of Samuel Langhorne Clemens Missouri boyhood and foreign travels on his writing, scholars right(prenominal) of Western New York consistently overlook the importance of the eighteen months he spent in overawe from rarified 1869 to March 1871. Though a Buffalo resident for the past twenty years, I was also barely vaguely aware that Clemens passed through until Dr. Walter Sharrow of the Canisius College History Department mentioned his topical anesthetic stay. The clue that Americas best satirist lived in Buffaloa location that could provide a contemporary wit with a astray range of materialtickled my historical sensibilities. Nearly immediately, I began to speculate why Americas most famous writer would migrate to Buffalo. subsequently I discarded my first ideasthe weather, the Buffalo Bills, the efficiency and effectiveness of our local pol itical leadersI concluded it must be because of a woman. Indeed, my early research echoed this assumption, reinforcing my interest in duos let here and inspiring the first section of this paper. When furthering my research, I developed a second point of interest. Two local scholars, Martin B. heat and Tom Reigstad two suggest that Buffalo was a major point of transition for Clemens. Fried writes, His Buffalo experience, scanted in most biographies, has significance because it was the final stage in a long campaign for an artistic existence free of pecuniary worries and of the burdens of journalistic writing. This suggestionthat his time in Buffalo inspired his growth from humorist and journalist to the novelist who produced Huck Finnintrigued me de... ...287_____________. 11 and 13 March 1871.Mark duos Letters, vol. 4, 349-350.Langdon, Olivia. 17 June 1868. Mark Twains Letters, vol. 2, 286. Twain, Mark. Salutatory, Buffalo Express. August 21, 1869 reprinted in Joseph B. McC ullough and Janice McIntire-Strasburg, Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express, 5.Twain, Mark. A General Reply. Buffalo Express. November 12, 1870 reprinted in Joseph B. McCullough and Janice McIntire-Strasburg, Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express, 254.Secondary Sources Martin B. Fried, Mark Twain in Buffalo, Niagara Frontier 5, no. 4 (Buffalo Buffalo Historical Society, spend 1959) 89.Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mr. Twain, (New York Simon and Schuster, 1966), 52.Joseph B. McCullough and Janice McIntire-Strasburg, Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express. DeKalb Northern Illinois Press 1999, xix.