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April 19, 2010
Twain As A “Marginal” Literary Critic
Yesterday I mentioned Mark Twain as poet. Even more than a poet, Twain was a literary critic. The New York Times has a nice piece by Alison Leigh Cowan, “Scrawled in the Margins, Signs of Twain as a Critic.” Kevin Mc Donnell, a rare book collector, told Cowan, “Twain could just lacerate a book." He “would also correct a book if he thought it was a gem." "I wouldn’t be surprised if he corrected the Bible and Shakespeare.” Of course, in the case of the Bible we know that the did.
The article also has a link to a nice collection of Twain's marginal comments, 118 pages of them, from various books in Twain's library. Check it out. Great stuff.
Posted by Duane Smith at April 19, 2010 9:14 AM | Read more on Mark Twain |
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Comments
Which is it?
"The droolings of an idiot"
or
"Wailings of an idiot"
Posted by: claire harmon at April 20, 2010 9:04 AM
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