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100'S OF
ILLUSTRATIONS!" That's what MT's contemporary
readers knew they would find in each of his popular books. These
pictures played a major role in shaping the way MT's texts were
read. In this site are hundreds of illustrations too, including
hundreds from the various publications of MT's work. The one at
left, by True Williams, is the first glimpse readers had of Huck
Finn. Clicking on it will take you to the exhibit on Williams'
illustrations of Tom Sawyer. |
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The pictures drawn from MT's texts illustrate more than one kind
of story. How Jim was depicted, for example, gives us access to
popular images of African Americans in MT's time, and since. The
picture at left was drawn by E.W. Kemble, the original
illustrator of Huck Finn, for an 1899 newspaper article.
Clicking on it will take you to a collection in the Huck
Finn part of this site of that brings together
representations of Jim from all the illustrated American editions
of the novel between 1885 and 1985. |
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To many readers the most vivid and best-known of MT's characters
was "Mark Twain" himself. He was the central character in
Innocents Abroad, his best-selling book, and many of his
other books and sketches. The depiction at left is from
Following the Equator, published when MT was over 60.
Clicking on it will take you to an exhibit in the part of the
site called "Sam Clemens as Mark Twain." There you can see for
yourself how in his own works MT and his illustrators created and
manipulated the image of "Mark Twain." |
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The image of "Mark Twain" was also regularly kept in his
contemporaries' view through many magazine and newspaper
articles, where scores of different artists assembled his
distinctive features -- hair, moustache, deadpan expression,
lively eyes, cigar, and eventually the white suit -- into their
own generally loving caricatures. The picture at left is one of
the fifteen "Mark Twain's" who appeared in Life magazine
between 1883 and 1907. Clicking on it will take you to an exhibit
of all fifteen. |
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"Mark Twain" was also one of the most frequently photographed
people in the nineteenth century (some have said
THE most photographed). Throughout this
site are many of these photos, some familiar, some very rare.
Clicking on the one at left will take you to a display in the
"Mark Twain on Stage" section of eight snapshots taken by Major
J.B. Pond when he was traveling as MT's manager during the
American leg of MT's 1895 lecture tour around the
world. |