By: Michael Druffel

The purpose of this bibliography is to scout out texts that might be useful in writing a paper on how 19^th century physical production and distribution of literature influenced the content of Mark Twain’s books. To that end I’m scouting texts that explore both Twain’s own issues with production (e.g.: his dealings with publishers, interest in new printing technology, &c) and texts that explore publishing in Twain’s time more generally. By gaining general knowledge of the material book culture in the 19^th century, and combining that background knowledge with Twain specific material, I hope to begin thinking about the ways Twain’s engagement with the material production of books could have influenced his writing. To best organize this bibliography I have broken it into two parts: one on Twain specifically (with an eye to his relations with material processes) and the other on publishing in general in the 19^th century.

Twain Specific Material

• Bird, John. “Mark Twain, Karl Gerhardt, and the Huckleberry Finn Frontispiece.” American Literary Realism 1 (Fall 2012): 28-37. Web.

 John Bird teaches American literature at Winthrop University, specializing in Twain, humor, and HD Thoreau. Bird examines the double frontispiece in Huck Finn: one page displays a frontispiece showing Huck with a dead rabbit; the opposite page shows a heliotype of a bust of Twain sculpted by Karl Gerhardt, an artist under Twain’s patronage. Bird argues that Twain wanted Gerhardt’s work prominently displayed in the book so Twain would benefit from Gerhardt’s fame. However, this claim doesn’t hold water. How would Twain benefit from Gerhardt’s fame? Bird re-suggests that Twain was smitten with Gerhardt’s wife and wanted to help the young couple. This seems more likely as Twain wrote letters about how beautiful the couple was. However, perhaps the best use for the double frontispiece for my purpose would be to tie it to Michelson’s argument in chapter four of Printer’s Devil and use it as an example of the corporate nature of authorship: sculptor, heliotypist, printer, and binder come together to show an image of Mark Twain.

• Budd, Louis J. “The Recomposition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The Missouri Review1 (1987): 113-130. Web.

Louis Budd was a noted Twain scholar associated with Duke University. Budd was particularly interested in Twain’s politics and social commentary. This article takes Stanley Fish’s assertion that each reader recomposes a text through reading and applies that view to the myriad recompositions of Huck Finn. The most interesting recompositions are: 1) EW Kemble’s recomposition through his 174 illustrations in Huck Finn; 2) why HF is recomposed in readers’ minds as separate and better than Tom Sawyer. Budd notes that initially critics viewed HF and TS almost interchangeably. Around the 1940s HF was lifted to a higher plane. This is interesting to note with regard to Michelson’s claim that authorship becomes corporatized. In Budd’s view, the reader becomes a kind of editor curating the texts of TS and HF. Unfortunately, the article loses steam by going into a diatribe against the canonization of Huck. Budd argues that HF’s canonization abstracts the novel from its comic roots. While the canon offers many dangerous political traps, Budd’s argument isn’t as radical now as it may have been in 1987, and comes across as less than breathtaking. However, the examination of illustrators and readers as kinds of authors is still sharp. 

• Hill, Hamlin. Introduction. Mark Twain’s Letters to his Publishers. Ed Hill. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967. Print.

Hamlin Hill, editor of Twain’s letters, was a Mark Twain scholar with special interest in Twain’s humor, bitterness, and his relation with his publishers. Hill argues Twain, a former newspaperman, came to literature to make money, and “The world of subscription book publishing into which Clemens moved in 1867 could only have strengthened his commercial approach to ‘literature’” (2). However, Twain struggled against subscription publishing’s (and his own personality’s) push to avarice. Caught between the facts of subscription production (which Hill calls dishonest and profit driven) and his own vision of high-minded literature, Twain vented his frustration on his publishers (MT called one “a most repulsive creature… a bastard monkey”). Hill thinks Twain was really frustrated with himself for sacrificing literary value for commercialism. This analysis seems well founded as Hill deploys quotes from Twain’s letters throughout the intro to show the writer’s struggle with commercialism’s pitfalls. Certainly, the struggle between the mode of production, publishers Hill calls dishonest, and Twain’s divided nature could be an entry point into thinking about how the content of Twain’s novels was shaped by these forces. The one critique I’d offer is that Hill doesn’t go into great specifics about how Twain’s subscription publishers were dishonest, but this could be easily researched further.

• Jenn, Ronald. “From American Frontier to European Borders: Publishing French Translations of Mark Twain’s Novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1884-1963). Book History (2006): 235-260.

This is Jenn’s only publication I could find. I do not know if he is affiliated with a university. However, Book History is a relatively new journal founded in 1998 that specializes on broad topics dealing with the history of book production and distribution. In the article Jenn examines the first French translations of TS and HF (1884 and 1886). He notes that Twain encouraged his American subscription sellers to market TS and HF to everyone, but that French booksellers narrowed the audience to children. In fact the translation makes many changes: improving teachers’ images; referring to Tom and Huck as “schoolboys;” concentrating the plot around school; and having Huck and Tom praise literacy they learned in school. In 1881 France made school mandatory and free for children, and French publishers tried to support the cause with pro-school books. As a result the translations of TS and HF are very different from their American counterparts. The translations are beautiful artifacts (gilt edges, renowned illustrators) designed to attract children to school through the physical structure of the book. This article shows one other aspect of production, and how that aspect (translation) shapes a text. It could be useful to think about.

• Michelson, Bruce. Printer’s Devil: Mark Twain and the American Publishing Revolution. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006. Adobe Digital Edition. 

  Bruce Michelson is a Mark Twain scholar with special interest in neuroscience and Twain’s humor. His book situates Twain in the midst of a great technological change: steam powered printing, railroads, and telegraphs were re-forming the landscape of American letters. Michelson contends Twain was shaped by these radical shifts, which BM argues are very similar to the digital revolution today, which Michelson thinks is “killing” the author in a Barthes-ian sense. Though the whole book seems useful, I was particularly interested in chapter four, “Huckleberry Finn and the American Print Revolution,” in which Michelson explores the problem of authorship in Huck Finn. Is the author of HF “Huck” or Twain? Michelson argues this question of split authorship hints at the corporate nature of publication when Twain was writing and suggests the multiple personalities were responsible for any single book in 1885: printers, editors, and illustrators to name a few. Michelson has several interesting pages on the technology of illustration and how that collaboration creates the book. This seems useful to my project by situation Twain among the people and technology who make books and showing the very voice of Huck as a kind of collaboration.
  

General History of Material Production

• Casper, Scott E, Nissenbaum, Stephen W, and Michael Winship,eds. History of the Book in America, Volume 3: The Industrial Book, 1840-1880. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Adobe Digital Edition.

Scott Casper, who writes the introduction, is a professor of history at University of Maryland Baltimore County. He specializes in 19^th century American cultural studies. Volume 3 focuses on the period between 1840, which, as Raven argues, is when steam printing took off, and 1880, when copyright laws began to change how printers could operate. Not technologically deterministic, Volume 3 examines how industrial printing (which includes industrial production of paper) interacted a growing middle class culture of education and “refinement.” But Volume 3 seems hesitant to locate the source of this new culture in the technology itself: rather the other way around. The most interesting chapter is Susan Williams’s (Provost Ohio State University, focus on women and the book before 1900) Authors and Literary Authorship. Because of the amount of capital needed to produce books at the time, publishers gained power. They would bear the cost of printing but pay the author a royalty (percentage of retail price). Sometimes this led to padded statements, which seems to point to the dishonesty Hill alluded to in his intro. However, authors were used to treating publishers not as business partners, but friends: genteel equals. As a result, many authors were hesitant to negotiate with publishers out of politeness. This changing relation between publishers and authors could certainly relate to Twain’s contentions dealing with his publishers.

• Chartier, Roger, Henri-Jean Martin. Le histoire de l’edition francaise, Tome 3: Le temps des editeurs: Du romantisme a la Belle Epoque. Paris: Fayard/Promodis, 1985. Print.

 Roger Chartier is Directeur d’Études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He also teaches history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the current leader of the Annales School that examines the mentalities that exist in different historical periods. The Annales School focuses more on beliefs than on materials like other historians do.

Chartier’s book argues that new printing technology, industrialization of intellectual labor and the development of liberalism (during 1830-1900) created flush times for publishers, but led to eventual overproduction. That overproduction, and eventual competition against other forms of information, led to something of a downfall for the book. What is notable is that Chartier emphasizes the public’s demand for books as a separate feature than simple production through technology. This is not a technologically determinist outlook. Chartier focuses on the editor as the key figure in the history of the book from 1830 to 1900. Twain focuses on publishers. It could be interesting to see how editing fit in with Twain.

• Martin, Henri-Jean, Lucien Febvre. L’apparition du livre. Paris: Albin Michel, 1958. Print.

 Lucien Febvre, the founder of the Annales School, asked Henri-Jean Martin, then a student, to help him on this book. While Febvre died before more than 10% of the book could be finished, his spirit presides over it. Conforming with the Annales School, L’apparition du livre, offers a look at how the book developed over five centuries, paying attention to the production of paper, transportation, and the growth of a reading public. While the book ends before Koenig built his 1814 steam-powered printing press, it could act as a counterpoint to the steam-power that was taking hold in Twain’s time. L’apparition du livre concludes that, at least before steam power, the book was a conservative force. It spread popular views and reinforced dogma. This seems counterintuitive to one who grew up with Fahrenheit 451 and saw books as an agent of change. Even Twain’s literature is often portrayed as socially minded. Perhaps technology, which made books cheaper, allowed for more voices to gain an ear.

• McKitterick, David. Old Books, New Technologies: The Representation, Conservation and Transformation of Books since 1700. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Print.

David McKitterick is a professor and librarian at Trinity College. He resigned one of his chairs when the University of London closed the Institute of English Studies. Like Bruce Michelson, McKitterick relates digitization to 19^th century publishing techniques. But McKitterick believes that digitization obscures the meaning of the original text by obscuring the form of the book: “form and meaning are inseparable” (14). To try to recover that connection, McKitterick looks back at the way books were handled, studied and produced from the 15^th to the 19^th centuries. The most interesting section to my project is McKitterick’s examination of the 1877 Caxton exhibition. McKitterick argues that this exhibition caused British scholars to realize “the essential materiality of print…. If [old books] were to be understood… it was necessary to understand their making” (184). This late 19^th century realization (that artifacts from the past are also produced from material through labor) relates in really interesting ways to Twain. Twain’s 1889 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court explores this very idea: that the ancient past (6^th century) was subject to its own material production that shaped its culture. Certainly Twain, who was very involved in publishing and the material nature of book production, would be aware of the Caxton exhibition. A good paper could examine how contemporary views of the old books shaped views of the past in A Connecticut Yankee.

• Raven, James. The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade 1450-1850. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Print.

 James Raven is a Professor of history and Director of the Centre for Bibliographical History at the University of Essex. His book, like McKitterick’s, follows printing history from the early modern period to the 19^th century. Raven’s limitation is he only follows the English book. However, any background printing knowledge is helpful. Particularly helpful is Raven’s penultimate chapter “Steam and Stamps: Nineteenth Century Transformations.” He discusses the transformation in British publishing that came with Koenig’s 1814 introduction of the steam-powered printing press. At the beginning of the 19^th century the steam-powered press produced a variety of cheap texts briefly freeing creative literature from the constraints of capital. But by 1840 the steam-powered improvement in printing forced little publishers out of the business concentrating publishing power in the hands of a few capitalists. Printers’ growing power led to struggles between the author and the publisher for control of the final product. That this happens in the 1840s ties into part of Michelson’s argument that Huck Finn, which is set around 1840, voices Twain’s struggle with the other parties who give life to literature.

By: Sarah Hildebrand

These sources are mostly part of a project for my course on Postwar Women Writers and Intellectuals where I will be examining the “place” of women writers. I am interested in using theories of ecocriticism, ecofeminism, and ecocomposition to draw attention to how the materiality of location affects the writing process and creative production of female intellectuals such as Virginia Woolf and Adrienne Rich.

Aronson, Anne. “Composing in a Material World: Women Writing in Space and Time.” Rhetoric Review 17.2 (1999): 282–99. Print.

Aronson compares the views of Virginia Woolf and Ursula LeGuin in terms of the material circumstances required for women to write. While Woolf is famous for her claim that a woman needs both an independent income and a room of one’s own, LeGuin argues that a woman can write so long as she has pen and paper, and that any interruptions she may experience only add to the depth of her writing. Taking up a case study of adult female undergraduates, Aronson explores the gendered conditions of space and time that encapsulate their writing processes, ultimately siding with Woolf by concluding that the material conditions of women’s lives often negatively impact their experiences as writers due to their lack of privilege.

Connolly, Colleen. “Ecology and Composition Studies: A Feminist Perspective on Living Relationships.”   Ecocomposition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches. Ed. Christian R. Weisser, Sidney I. Dobrin, and Marilyn M. Cooper. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 2001. 179–91. Gale. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.

Connolly integrates ecofeminism into her take on compositional pedagogy, drawing awareness to issues of diversity and difference. She provides an overview of ecofeminism that explains the connection between the oppression of nature and that of women, suggesting that these oppressive structures are interrelated and often reinforce each other. Pedagogically, she believes that by assigning writing assignments that address practices of “othering” not only in terms of the social world, but the natural one, students will gain an increased understanding of hegemonic power structures and of their relationships to the world in which they live.

Cunha-Giabbi, Gloria da. “Ecofeminismo Latinoamericano.” Letras Femeninas 22.1/2 (1996): 51–63. Print.

This article provides an overview of ecofeminism from the perspective of the United States and explains why its framework does not necessarily translate to Latin American literature due to the different cultural conceptions of nature between these two regions. Although in Latin America nature is also feminized, its conception has otherwise gone through two phases, the first of which envisioned that same nature as capable of trapping or destroying man, while in the second wave, nature came to be imagined as a savior that protected man from social injustice. When nature is oppressive, it oppresses everyone, not only women. And when it is being destroyed, it is by both genders. The author also describes the role of many indigenous churches in fostering a view of nature that is inextricably tied to the survival of man, which is not as prevalent in the U.S. where ecocritics struggle to collapse the nature/culture binary.

Dobrin, Sidney I. “Writing Takes Place.” Ecocomposition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches. Ed. Christian R. Weisser, Sidney I. Dobrin, and Marilyn M. Cooper. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 2001. 11–25. Gale. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.

Dobrin offers a discussion of ecocomposition and crafts the catch phrase “writing takes place,” suggesting that the writing process is inseparable from the place in which it occurs. He argues that the location of writing affects the type of writing that is produced, as no writer can ever remove him or herself from the environment physically, culturally, socially, or often legislatively. Dobrin makes a case for ecocomposition within the field of rhetoric and composition studies, encouraging these scholars to engage with the “hard” sciences more fully, as an ecological framework has already pervaded the field via place-based metaphors (“the nature of writing,” “the classroom environment,” etc.). Writers are affected by location, and their discourse is subsequently altered by it.

Dobrin, Sidney I., and Christian R. Weisser. “Breaking Ground in Ecocomposition: Exploring Relationships between Discourse and Environment.” College English 64.5 (2002): 566–89. Print.

This article traces the history of ecocomposition and its ecocritical roots, providing a literature review of works that have taken up the subject thus far in order to preface the authors’ own present working definition. Dobrin and Weisser usefully posit that we must preserve natural places in order to preserve our own depth of discourse as the natural world and our writing process/language systems are mutually dependent. They encourage thinking ecologically about composition – the process of writing as part of an ecosystem of writers/readers/teachers, and of course places. However, Dobrin and Weisser also problematically attempt to wholly separate ecocomposition from ecocriticism (despite the former’s admitted roots in the latter), refusing to label it as a subfield and claiming arbitrary (and often inaccurate) differences in what seems an unnecessary attempt to further legitimize their own field.

Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. Print.

Rob Nixon calls readers’ attention to what he defines as “slow violence” – violence that occurs without spectacle and often over an extended period of time. While particularly highlighting the prevalence of slow violence in the context of environmental catastrophe, such as climate change, he also connects it to trauma studies and issues of domestic abuse and PTSD. Nixon points to the often overlooked nature of slow violence and its victims while raising the question of how we might develop more compelling narratives of these events in order to increase awareness and inspire people to take social and political action. I am especially interested in his claim that “A locked door can be a weapon” (16), as this is a recurring image in the work of Virginia Woolf.

Puleo, Alicia H. “De ‘eterna ironía de la comunidad’ a sujeto del discurso: Mujeres y creación       cultural”. Nuevas masculinidades Ed. Marta Segarra and Angels Carabí. La Coruña,               Spain: Icaria, 2000. 65-82.

This article traces the feminine voice over the course of the past fifty years in Western society from a place of marginalization to one where it has become a subject of discourse, ultimately forcing men to redefine what it means to be human. Puleo points to the exclusion of women in the sphere of cultural creation, which in turn affected female identity. She uses Hegel to frame readings of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex to confront the issue of female identity. Puleo also touches on ecofeminism and how our systems of hierarchies have reinforced gender inequality. Her ultimate goal is to prove that by allowing females to become the subject of discourse, we provide men with a mirror in which to reexamine themselves; thus reconstructing both male and female identity.

Reynolds, Nedra. Geographies of Writing: Inhabiting Places and Encountering Difference. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. Print.

Reynolds examines composition through the lens of cultural geography, contemplating how our movements, travels, or lack thereof contribute to the writing process. She draws attention to the materiality inherent in composition as our locations affect our knowledge and modes of production. Reynolds takes up the issue of how technology has affected our public spaces, and discusses maps/mapping our movements as useful tools for rethinking education. While she doesn’t provide many examples of pedagogical practices that could help bridge the perceived divide between writer and place, she usefully draws attention to the ways in which we live, and write, through geography.

Solomon, Julie Robin. “Staking Ground: The Politics of Space in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas.” Women’s Studies 16.3/4 (1989): 331. Print.

Solomon explores Woolf’s spatial metaphors in A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas to comment on the social and political importance of space in the lives of women. She draws attention to the contradictory ways these metaphors are deployed in Woolf’s works, claiming that while in the earlier work Woolf encourages women to work from within the patriarchal system through adaptation, in the latter she rejects the system entirely in order to form the Society of Outsiders and accomplish equality through subversion. Solomon grounds her arguments in the theoretical frameworks of Michel de Certeau and Claude Levi-Strauss and their concepts of tactics and bricolage.

Weisser, Christian R. “Ecocomposition and the Greening of Identity.” Ecocomposition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches. Ed. Christian R. Weisser, Sidney I. Dobrin, and Marilyn M. Cooper.  Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 2001. 81–95. Gale. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.

This article focuses on the relationship among composition, identity formation, and the environment. Weisser claims that not only are we (and our writing processes) affected by our social relationships, but by the physical spaces in which we live. Although some scholars have begun to awaken to this idea, little has been done to integrate it into composition theory as the idea of language itself continues to be viewed as a human-centered affair. Weisser offers a brief history of the field of rhetoric and composition in order to hypothesize that to come to a greater understanding of our own identities we must more fully analyze the relationships our discourse has with nonhuman nature.