Why Was Mark Twain So Taken with Joan of Arc?
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Darin H. Mangum is an attorney who has practiced law for over 15 years. He enjoys reading, especially Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. Last summer, Mangum fulfilled a lifelong dream by visiting Joan of Arc's birthplace in France. He admires Joan of Arc as a role model for women. Mark Twain had a long fascination with Joan of Arc and wrote his last novel, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, about her in 1896 from the perspective of her fictionalized page. Historians have debated the origins and extent of Twain's obsession with Joan of Arc, though it is clear he admired her for many years.
Why Was Mark Twain So Taken with Joan of Arc?
- 2. Attorney Darin H. Mangum has been practicing the law for more than 15 years as managing member of his private firm in Provo, Utah. In his free time, Darin H. Mangum enjoys reading and claims Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain as one of his favorite books. Darin H. Mangum was able to fulfill one of his life-long dreams and visited Joan of Arc's birthplace in Domrémy-la-Pucelle, France, last summer. Darin H. Mangum believes Joan of Arc is such a role model for women and personal revelation to everyone.
- 3. Mark Twain entertained a longstanding and quite puzzling fascination with Joan of Arc, whom he described as “by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced.” In fact, he even wrote his last novel about the woman. The book, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, was published in 1896 when the novelist was 61 years old. It appeared in serial form in Harper’s Magazine and was written as a memoir about the famed lady of history by her fictionalized page (heavily based on the woman’s real page, Louis de Contes).
- 4. Mark Twain historians have long been baffled by the author’s obsession with Joan of Arc. One historian, the biographer Albert B. Paine, said that the author claimed that his fascination began when he was a young lad, but modern historians disagree. Regardless, it’s apparent that the author admired Joan of Arc for many years as she appears in some of his earliest essays; in fact, he even claimed that Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was his best work.