Mark Twain’s Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading, Volume Two

The word “monumental” is certainly overused, but in the case of Alan Gribben’s Mark Twain’s Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading, vol. 2, “monumental” is an understatement. In size, scope, scholarship, comprehensiveness, and execution, Gribben’s reference book will prove to be indispensable for scholars and for people interested in Mark Twain’s intellectual life for generations to come.This massive second volume is the follow-up to Gribben’s Mark Twain’s Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of his Library and Reading, vol. 1 (NewSouth Books/U of Georgia P, 2019), in which he recounts his research and provides an overview of Twain’s library and reading. But volume 2 is also the long-awaited expansion of Gribben’s previously monumental reference work, Mark Twain’s Library: A Reconstruction, published in 1980 but long out of print. That book was itself an expansion of Gribben’s 1974 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of California–Berkeley, the longest ever filed there. His research, begun in 1969, spans over five decades, the overflowing materials housed in two rooms of his house (as pictured in the book). The result of Gribben’s long labors and meticulous scholarship is not only perhaps the most valuable and important reference book on Mark Twain, but also an eloquent refutation of what Gribben calls “the recurrent charges by elitist literary critics and historians that Twain was more or less an intellectual lightweight whose writings merely survive on the fading strength of their comical qualities” (xi).Gribben continues, “I demonstrate that he read challenging works of philosophy, history, comparative religions, science, and astronomy, and that he was familiar with most of the respected literary artists who wrote in English in addition to European authors whose works he read in French, German, and Italian” (xi–xii). He argues thatIn addition to those three thousand volumes, Gribben catalogs titles that Twain refers to in his works and letters, bringing the total entries in this volume to nearly six thousand. Monumental indeed!Reconstructing Twain’s library was made necessary because of the dispersal of his books, including his donations to the Mark Twain Library in Redding, Connecticut (over 2,000 books, with all but 240 or so lost, discarded, or never returned by borrowers) and large auctions in 1911 and 1951. Gribben includes the Quarry Farm books owned by Theodore and Susan Crane, since Twain would have had access to them during his twenty years of visits to Elmira. The Annotated Catalog thus consists of lists and descriptions of, Gribben notes, “nearly 6,000 books, short stories, essays, poems, plays, operas, songs, newspapers, and magazines that Clemens mentioned or to which he had direct access” (xviii).Items in the Annotated Catalog are arranged alphabetically by authors’ names, with anonymous works listed by title. Entries include bibliographic data, signatures and inscriptions, marginalia if any, descriptions in book catalogs, provenance if determined, current location if known, as well as scholarship about particular authors and titles. What could have been, in the hands of another, a relatively dry but still valuable list of book titles is transformed by Gribben’s tireless research, vast knowledge, unfailing attention to detail, and inspired vision into a masterpiece of scholarship. To take two examples among many, his entries on the works of Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Sir Walter Scott amount to overviews of, respectively, an important literary friendship and an interesting literary quarrel, each being scholarly articles in themselves.Pages in the Annotated Catalog are arranged in two columns in an oversized format with relatively small type. Most author entries are relatively short, but others are more extensive. For example, Shakespeare (15 double-columned pp.); William Dean Howells (12 pp.); Charles Dickens (8 pp.); the Bible (8 pp.); Robert Browning (7½ pp.); Rudyard Kipling (7 pp.); William Lecky (6 pp., with abundant marginalia noted); Bret Harte (6 pp.); Harriet Beecher Stowe (4½ pp.); Omar Khayyám (3½ pp.); Thomas Carlyle (3½ pp.); Tennyson (3½ pp.); Oliver Wendell Holmes (3 pp.); Charles Dudley Warner (3 pp.); Charles Darwin (3 pp.); Edgar Allan Poe (2 pp.); and Henry James (1½ pp.). Entries sometimes morph into mini essays; for example, the entry on Albert Bigelow Paine is a partial defense of an often-maligned figure. An 1888 book on stock speculation by Moses Smith becomes a nine-page essay on Mark Twain as a businessman. The entry on Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is fascinating. Besides its obvious research uses, Gribben’s book is a browser’s delight. When you pick it up, be prepared to spend several hours flipping pages and making new discoveries and connections.Following the Annotated Catalog is “A Reader’s Guide to the Annotated Catalog,” a supercharged index and finding tool, with more than ten thousand entries, nearly twice as many as the Annotated Catalog. It consists of titles of books, stories, essays, poems, plays, and other works listed in the catalog, but also names of co-authors, editors, co-editors, pseudonyms, illustrators, translators, compilers, adaptors, writers of introductions and prefaces, composers of melodies, and other individuals. In addition, and very importantly, the Reader’s Guide contains subject and genre headings, making it more than merely an index; indeed, it is a reference work in itself, as well as a way to help readers make their way through the voluminous catalog.In addition to the twelve pages of Howells’s works in the catalog, he is referred to in nineteen more entries; Shakespeare’s extra mentions take up two columns. (Each column has around 35 entries.) Aside from the helpful references to authors and titles, the subject and genre headings are especially useful and enlightening, revealing most clearly the breadth of Twain’s reading. A listing of some of the topics shows how insatiable, curious, and adventurous Mark Twain was: afterlife (nearly a column); agnosticism (nearly a column); agriculture (6 entries); sea adventures and voyages (3 columns); bees (11 entries); insects (1 column); English grammar, history, and style (1¾ columns); English history (3 columns); French history (2 columns); hunting literature (nearly a full column); hymns (1 column); India (2 columns); erotica (20 entries); death (1 column); detective fiction (19 entries); ecology, nature appreciation, and land usage (1 column); economics and labor issues (1½ columns); geology (18 entries); children’s and young adult literature (4 columns); art history and techniques (1½ columns); astronomy (1 column); biographies (5 columns); racial prejudice (26 entries); slavery (2½ columns); birds (30 entries); Native Americans (2 columns); natural history (2 columns); evolution (18 entries); science (20 entries); science and religion (20 entries); science fiction (33 entries); prostitution (4 entries); spiritualism and spiritual healing (1 column); court trials (21 entries); boy books (1 column); botany (11 entries); American humorists (3 columns); American history (1¾ columns); medical advice and subjects (1 column); American South (1 column); American West (1½ columns); autobiographies (2 columns); and astronomy (28 entries).As Gribben asserts in his introduction, “Even with the considerable number of unknown losses and donations, the magnitude of Clemens’s reading as documented in the Catalog will astonish many people. His curiosity about books and his recorded responses to his reading reflect an intellect more critically mature than we have sometimes given him credit for possessing. Anxious to maintain his identity with the relatively unread audience for whom he profitably wrote subscription books, he was always self-conscious about his extensive literary knowledge” (xx–xxi). Even though Mark Twain carefully cultivated the guise of an untutored jester, Gribben’s reconstruction of Twain’s library and reading dispel any such notions for all the time. The boy whose formal education ended at age eleven became the man whose vast and varied reading made him intelligent, knowledgeable, sophisticated, and endlessly curious.Through many years of research and many miles on the road carrying out his literary detective work, Alan Gribben has achieved in the two volumes of Mark Twain’s Literary Resources a reference work that will not be surpassed in its usefulness, comprehensiveness, value, and importance. It is truly a monumental achievement, easily worthy of that word. It instantly becomes an essential reference tool for anyone interested in Mark Twain, both for individuals and for libraries. Just as Mark Twain was inexhaustible in his reading, Gribben has been inexhaustible in his research, and generations of scholars and enthusiasts will be the beneficiaries as a result. (As an aside, lest the list price put off any potential purchaser—although the massive work is worth it—check out the price on Amazon, at this writing a huge discount from list price, and truly a bargain for such an important volume. Also note that the title listed online is Mark Twain’s Literary Resources: Twain’s Collection, Owned and Borrowed, vol. 2, but the correct subtitle is A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading, vol. 2.)Credit should also go to Alan Gribben’s wife, Irene Wong, who along with their children not only spent many vacation days traveling with Alan to pursue yet another lead on a particular book, but who also served as an able co-editor of the project. Alan’s dedication in volume 1 is apt: “For Irene Wong, who married a scholar and his book.”I close on a personal note. My school’s library did not have a copy of Gribben’s earlier volume, Mark Twain’s Library: A Reconstruction, and I could neither find nor afford a copy of the long-out-of-print work. I can’t count the number of times I traveled to another university’s library just to look something up in that reference book. I am overjoyed to have Alan Gribben’s two volumes on Twain’s reading occupying pride of place in my own library of Twain works and Twain studies. I know that I will refer to them often, my journey to consult them now a few steps instead of many miles. And I will read through it often, in awe both of Mark Twain’s reading and of Alan Gribben’s conscientious and meticulous research.