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

Samuel Clemens in Buffalo A Woman and an ArtistPreface time literary critics and historians alike have thoroughly examined the influence of Samuel Langhorne Clemens Missouri boyhood and foreign travels on his writing, scholars outside of Western New York consistently overlook the importance of the cardinal months he spent in Buffalo from August 1869 to March 1871. Though a Buffalo resident for the past twenty years, I was also merely vaguely aware that Clemens passed through until Dr. Walter Sharrow of the Canisius College History Department mentioned his local stay. The suggestion that Americas best satirist lived in Buffaloa muddle that could provide a contemporary wit with a wide range of materialtickled my historical sensibilities. Nearly immediately, I began to speculate why Americas most famous writer would migrate to Buffalo. After I discarded my first ideasthe weather, the Buffalo Bills, the efficiency and effectiveness of our local political leadersI concluded it must be because of a woman. Indeed, my early research echoed this assumption, reinforcing my interest in straddles experience here and inspiring the first instalment of this paper. When furthering my research, I developed a second straits 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 long campaign for an artistic existence issue of financial worries and of the burdens of journalistic 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.Mark galluss Letters, vol. 4, 349-350.Langdon, Olivia. 17 June 1868. Mark Twains Letters, vol. 2, 286. Twain, Mark. Salutatory, Buffalo Express. August 21, 1869 reprinted 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 Frontier 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.