SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 75 (of 78)
Extracts (1907-1909)
Chapter 75
Extracts (1907-1909)
I began writing Captain Stormfield’s Visit To Heaven, inspired by Captain Edgar Wakeman, in 1868, the year I met the man. Over the next three decades, I periodically plucked it from its pigeonhole to mend this or amend or append that. I’m not sure that I’m finished with it yet. That is to say, although I’m not going to work on it any more, I don’t know if it’s in a satisfactorily finished condition as it is. Still, I did have it published—what there was of it—in 1907 and 1908 in Harper’s Magazine, and then as a book just a few months ago, in late 1909. The book’s full title is Extracts From Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven.
The proceeds I have received from “Captain Stormfield” have been of prodigious enough magnitude that I was able to pay for much of my new home by means of them. I engaged as architect Howells’ son John.
I christened the place “Stormfield,” both because the proceeds from that book paid much of the price for the place, as mentioned, but also because from this home’s vantage point I can see storms approaching from all directions. Literal storms, that is. I had no inkling of the coming figurative storms.
EDITOR’S NOTES: Twain’s real reason for building Stormfield at his stage of life, as he revealed to a friend in late 1906, was so that his daughter Jean would have a comfortable place to live. He said, “I must have a country home for her.”
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Twain strangely always seemed entertained by life yet simultaneously willing to rid himself of its irritations. A character in Captain Stormfield, acknowledging the circumstantial evidence that he seems to be literally on his way to hell, only becomes despondent over that prospect upon realizing what it means for him: that he will never see his daughter again. Twain doubtless had Susy in mind while writing this (as both Jean and Clara were still alive at that juncture).
Livy was against Twain publishing the story, as she thought it blasphemous; ironically, after withholding the story from publication for decades due to its irreverent tone or subject matter, Harper’s at first rejected it on the basis that it was “too damn godly.”
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.