University Press of America
Pages: 516
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9
978-0-7618-6420-2 • Hardback • October 2014 • $140.00 • (£108.00)
978-0-7618-6778-4 • Paperback • April 2016 • $64.99 • (£50.00)
978-0-7618-6421-9 • eBook • October 2014 • $61.50 • (£47.00)
Harold H. Kolb Jr. is emeritus professor of American literature at the University of Virginia, where he was the founding director of the American Studies Program and the Center for the Liberal Arts. His writings include articles and monographs on American literature, American history, humor, composition, legal writing, natural history, and education.
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Shape of a Humorist’s Career
A Peculiar Genius
Forty-Five Years as a Serio-Humorist
A Century of Criticism
A Humorist’s Self-Definition
Toward a Discussion of Humor
Chapter 2: The Physics of Humor
Chapter 3: The Psychology of Humor
Relaxation
Coping
Aggression
Chapter 4: The Sociology of Humor: National Character and Morality
American Humor
The Morality of Humor
Mark Twain and the Natives, at Home and Abroad
Early Years: Comic Creations (1851-1872)
Chapter 5: The Strategy of Counterpoint
The Apprenticeship of a Humorist
The Clash of Contrast and the Stretch of Exaggeration
Jump-Starting a Career
A Humorist Afloat
The Innocents Abroad
Samson Trimmed, Lightly
Roughing It
Chapter 6: Throw in Another Grizzly: The Tall Tale in America
Middle Years: The Triumph of Satire (1873-1889)
Chapter 7: Old Times and New Narrators
“Old Times on the Mississippi”
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A Joke for John: The Whittier Birthday Speech
Tramping with Twichell
A Turn to History: The Prince and the Pauper
Chapter 8: The Non-Example of Bret Harte
Chapter 9: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Joke on Jim
Beyond Jim: The Humor of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter 10: Comic Contrast and Violent Humor: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Comic and Satiric Contrasts
The Humor of Violence
Satire and Poignancy
Chapter 11 The Advocacy of W. D. Howells
Later Years: The Humorist as Ironist (1890-1910)
Chapter 12: The Not-So-Gay Nineties
Busted
A Bankrupt Abroad
Raffish Reviewer
Twain’s Twins: Pudd’nhead Wilson
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Gains and Losses
Chapter 13: A Subtle Humorist
Recovery
Following the Equator
Vienna and London
Homecoming
Satirist vs. Imperialists
Adam and Eve
The Higher Animals
The Christian Science Autocracy
Shakespeare and the Law
God and Man
Pessimist?
Remnants
Chapter 14: Mysterious Strangers
The Texts
Editorial Pain
Symbols, and a Theory, of Despair
Chapter 15: An Uncharted Sea of Recollection: Mark Twain’s Autobiography
Four Twentieth-Century Editions
The Twenty-First Century Definitive Autobiography
“The Right Way to Do an Autobiography”
Appendix
Books by Mark Twain: A Selected List of American Editions Published in His Lifetime
Tales and Sketches
Posthumously Published Works
Sources
Key to Abbreviations
Notes
Other Works Cited
Index
In Mark Twain: The Gift of Humor, Kolb has assumed the Herculean task of providing a comprehensive study of the core of Twain's lasting attraction to readers over the course of the last 150 years, his understanding of, and incorporation of a depth of understanding of humor far surpassing that of his contemporary ‘phunny phellows,’ and many of our twenty-first century practitioners. That he has succeeded in his mission must be regarded as nothing less than an astounding achievement, one which renders this work worthy of including in the library of every serious student of Twain. It can confidently be concluded that Mark Twain: The Gift of Humor is the benchmark on the subject against which any forthcoming attempts will be measured for the next century.
— Mark Twain Forum
At a time when most literary critics are as giddy as teenagers to embrace the latest intellectual fad, Kolbs his magisterial 500-page study around the disarmingly uncontroversial claim that Mark Twain was, first and last, a humorist…. There are so many highlights in Kolb’s discussion that a reviewer is helpless to do more than gesture toward some of the book’s more surprising episodes…. If a single image emerges from Kolb’s panoramic study, it would be that of Mark Twain as an ‘amiable’ humorist, a writer whose innate sense of disparity fostered a profoundly sympathetic vision of human beings and the world they inhabit. There are many interpretive treasures in this book.
— American Literary Realism