Beard's "Reading" of the Novel

Both MT and his publicity talked about how fully Beard's drawings "entered into the spirit" of the novel. His wonderful illustrations often certainly ignore the letter of the text. The first picture below, for example, as Hall pointed out in the caption he wrote for the sales prospectus, "illustrates a story told of Abraham Lincoln" -- not a story told by Mark Twain! The next drawing, for the chapter in which Hank restores the fountain in the Valley of Holiness, ingeniously finds a way to make the "miracle" Hank works on the occasion consistent with his desire to undermine the Church -- but Beard's consistency ignores the complexity, even the contradictoriness of the text, where Hank's performance clearly (though implicitly) serves the interests of the Church. Similarly, Beard's eloquent illustration of the relationship between Old World elitism and American forms of prejudice and discrimination has little textual support. Throughout Beard's drawings attack wealthy capitalists, but Hank, as the text presents him, is much more like an upwardly-mobile entrepeneur than a labor organizer. The last drawing is Beard's representation of the 19th century present as the flowering tree of progress, presided over by "Peace." Again, Beard's drawings flatten out some of the most provocative inconsistencies in the text, where Hank's attempt to impose "progress" on the 6th century leads to war, and weapons of mass destruction. Like many of Beard's illustrations, none of the pictures on this page have any textual basis. They illustrate ideas that Beard would claim are inspired by the text. In comments he made at the time the novel was published, even MT's understanding of his own novel seems to have been influenced by Beard's illustrations.

1889 CONNECTICUT YANKEE ILLUSTRATION
1889 CONNECTICUT YANKEE ILLUSTRATION
1889 CONNECTICUT YANKEE ILLUSTRATION
1889 CONNECTICUT YANKEE ILLUSTRATION


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