Samuel Clemens in Buffalo: A Woman and an Artist Essay -- Samuel Cleme

Samuel Clemens in buffalo A fair sex and an ArtistPrefaceWhile literary critics and historians alike have exhaustively examined the influence of Samuel Langhorne Clemens Missouri boyhood and foreign travels on his writing, scholars outside of Western impertinent York consistently overlook the importance of the eighteen months he spent in Buffalo from August 1869 to March 1871. Though a Buffalo occupier for the past twenty years, I was also only vaguely mindful that Clemens passed through until Dr. Walter Sharrow of the Canisius College History Department mentioned his local stay. The proposal that Americas best satirist lived in Buffaloa location that could domiciliate a contemporary wit with a wide range of substantialtickled my historical sensibilities. Nearly immediately, I began to speculate why Americas most famous writer would migrate to Buffalo. After I cast out my first ideasthe weather, the Buffalo Bills, the efficiency and effectiveness of our local political leadi ngI concluded it must be because of a woman. Indeed, my early inquiry echoed this assumption, reinforcing my interest in distichs experience here and enliven the first section of this paper. When furthering my research, I developed a second picture of interest. Two local scholars, Martin B. Fried and Tom Reigstad both suggest that Buffalo was a major point of transition for Clemens. Fried writes, His Buffalo experience, scanted in most biographies, has significance because it was the final stage in a yearn campaign for an artistic existence free of financial worries and of the burdens of diary keeperic writing. This suggestionthat his time in Buffalo inspired his development from humorist and journalist to the novelist who produced Huck Finnintrigued me de... ...287_____________. 11 and 13 March 1871. ascertain Twains Letters, vol. 4, 349-350.Langdon, Olivia. 17 June 1868. inclination Twains Letters, vol. 2, 286. Twain, Mark. Salutatory, Buffalo Express. August 21, 1869 repr inted in Joseph B. McCullough and Janice McIntire-Strasburg, Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express, 5.Twain, Mark. A General Reply. Buffalo Express. November 12, 1870 reprinted in Joseph B. McCullough and Janice McIntire-Strasburg, Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express, 254.Secondary Sources Martin B. Fried, Mark Twain in Buffalo, Niagara bourn 5, no. 4 (Buffalo Buffalo Historical Society, Winter 1959) 89.Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mr. Twain, (New York Simon and Schuster, 1966), 52.Joseph B. McCullough and Janice McIntire-Strasburg, Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express. DeKalb Northern Illinois Press 1999, xix.