Joan of Arc’s story has been told and retold a seemingly endless number of times. Since the dramatic highlights differ in each telling and even the facts of her life tend to vary, it is hard to single out one story above the rest, that is—until you read Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. In order to understand what makes his version so special, we have to start with background on his interest in Joan’s life.

Mark and Joan — Unlikely “Friends”

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, more commonly known as Mark Twain, developed an interest in Joan of Arc by what he would have us think was a type of divine intervention. In 1849, during his early days working as a printer in Hannibal, Missouri, he claims to have grabbed a sheet of paper blowing in the wind while he was walking about the streets one day.

His curiosity piqued as he began reading about a French country maiden unjustly imprisoned in Rouen. The page, as it turned out, was from a history of Joan of Arc, someone whom Clemens alleges he previously had never heard of. Thus began his lifelong interest in learning as much about Joan’s history as possible. His biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, refers to this episode as a “turning point” in Clemens’s life after which he gained an ever increasing appetite to learn about History.

Clemens dedicated twelve years of research plus two years of writing to Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, though this did not ensue until much later in his career after he had already made a name for himself publishing such works as Huckleberry Finn. By that point, he was world-renowned for his unique “brand” of writing, and his general dislike of religious organizations—despite having been raised a Presbyterian—was well-known.

His decision to publish a historical biography on a Catholic saint would defy expectations and possibly hinder the success of his work. Recognizing this and fearful his work would not be reviewed on its own merits, he initially published the work as a year-long serial in Harper’s Magazine under the alias of “Sieur Louis de Conte.” This nom de plume, however, fooled very few, and Clemens’s concerns played out just as he had worried.

Reviews were harsh. The Boston Literary World criticized Twain for using modern, American idioms in a story set in fifteenth century France. Similarly, the Brooklyn Eagle said Joan’s characterization was that of “a nice little American girl of the mid-nineteenth century.” The New York Bachelor of Arts took its criticism a step further, saying Clemens turned “into a prosy, goody-goody writer of Sunday-school tales in his old age.” The criticisms got more personal from there, with one reviewer lamenting, “Mark Twain as a historical novelist is not at his best.”

Clemens was sorely disappointed. He had hoped readers would glean a better, more accurate understanding of the historical icon whom he had come to revere. Instead, he had become the focus.  

Nevertheless, Clemens felt Personal Recollections was the best of his works. It seems his feelings are shared by the masses who have purchased and read his work in the hundred-and-some-odd years since its initial publication. Such is often the case with classics. Time is the only real critic that matters in the end.

Conclusion

So why did Clemens dedicate so much time to learning about Joan of Arc and risk his career in the telling of her life? Of course the reasons are many, so we need only state the obvious. He not only liked her but also believed in her story at some level. What’s more, he felt it important to share Joan’s story with the world.

Although his critics saw Personal Recollections as a departure from his other works like Huckleberry Finn, I beg to differ. Joan, albeit a saint in her afterlife, was a firestorm in life much like Huck. Both defied social conventions and suffered great injustices for the sake of others. Moreover, just as Huck unwittingly fought against the tyranny of slavery, Joan unwittingly fought against the tyranny of a corrupted Church and State alliance.

In both works, Clemens tugs at the moral conscience of society. He challenges his readers to question the world they live in and make their own judgements about right and wrong, good and evil, justice and injustice, truth and falsehood. And that is precisely why Personal Recollections is such a powerful story for students and why it works for so well as the foundation for an investigation into Joan’s life.

We’ll take a closer look Clemens’s perspective, given through the eyes of his narrator Sieur Louis de Conte in the next post.