SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 56 (of 78) Part 2
“The Veriest Trash” (A Rattling Tiptop Puff) (1885) Part 2
Chapter 56
“The Veriest Trash” (A Rattling Tiptop Puff) (1885) Part 2: Rest of Editors Notes
EDITOR’S NOTES CONTINUED:
Long-time portrayer of Twain (“Mark Twain Tonight!”) Hal Holbrook had this to say about “Huck Finn” and its message:
It is sometimes painful to read, but that’s because Twain is pushing our nose into painful realities. The material and the audiences rise above the political correctness issue. Look, frightened and faint-hearted people don’t know how to think. They’re absolutely paralyzed by political correctness. They’re so frightened of a word, they miss the larger issue. They miss the wonderful message that preaches against prejudice and hatred. We get so distracted by these truly small-minded deviations like political correctness that we don’t deal with the big problems that are becoming almost insurmountable in our society.
Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man, wrote in 1953:
Huckleberry Finn knew, as did Mark Twain, that Jim was not only a slave but a human being …in freeing Jim, Huck makes a bid to free himself of the conventionalized evil taken for civilization by the town …Twain …was as highly moral an artist as he was a believer in democracy, and vice versa.
Modern detractors may be interested to know that early denigrators of “Huck Finn” did not take issue with the “racist” language (the “N-Word”). They rather took umbrage at the fact that Twain presented the “runaway slave” Jim as a real person with thoughts and feelings rather than as a caricature from a minstrel show.
Something else to consider: As for reparations, Twain held that such should be made to the negroes, both through personal actions and by civil reforms.
Giving further evidence of where Twain’s heart was in the matter of race relations and equality is the fact that he had a picture of school-teacher Prudence Crandall on the wall of his billiards room at his Hartford home. Crandall was the first educator to integrate an American classroom.
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In 1885, Twain’s publishing firm, Charles Webster & Co., brought out both Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. The latter was a huge financial success not only for the company, but for the Grant family as well. General/President Grant finished writing the book almost immediately prior to his death, and it was published shortly thereafter. After suffering severe financial reversals, Grant was concerned about his family’s future; from the sales of his memoirs, Grant’s widow ended up receiving approximately $450,000 in royalties, equivalent to more than twelve million dollars today (2021). Anybody but a professional athlete (or plumber) should be able to live on that amount.
You can listen to this chapter here.
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Blackbird Crow Raven’s “Rebel With A Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs” is being serialized in this space on substack every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; it is also available in its entirety from here.