Mark Twain House, Hartford, Conn. 

“The wisest and the best of men — nay, the wisest and best of their actions — may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.” Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11  

The news on the internet is that the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut has hit hard times, and is in danger of closing. Jane Austen might find an ironic twist in the rumors of its demise since Twain was so unkind to her writing during his lifetime. In one of his many infamous quotes against his fellow 19th-century author, he claimed that he had no right to criticize books and does so only when he hates them.  

“I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.” – Letter to Joseph Twichell, 13 September 1898

Twain’s three story rambling Victorian home was built in 1874 at the height of his popularity and financial prowess. He penned many of his masterpieces there including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He also corresponded with his life-long friend William Dean Howells, a fellow author and literary critic, about Howells favorite author Jane Austen. It was an ongoing amusement for Twain to rib his friend about his decidedly poor choice of admiration of Austen. In Howells’ essay My Mark Twain: Reminiscences (1910) he tells us more about Twain’s motivations. 

His prime abhorrence was my dear and honored prime favorite, Jane Austen. He once said to me, I suppose after he had been reading some of my unsparing praise of her-I am always praising her, “You seem to think that woman could write,” and he forbore withering me with his scorn, apparently because we had been friends so long and he more pitied than hated me for my bad taste. 

In Emily Auerback’s excellent book Searching for Jane Austen, she explores Mark Twain’s ongoing banter over Jane Austen’s talent, or lack of it. One of his unfinished writings is entitled Jane Austen. In the last chapter of her book, she includes an insightful investigation of the unfinished work, and Twain’s published letters and quotes about his distaste of Jane Austen’s writing. You can read the entire essay online though The Virginia Quarterly Review. Here is an interesting excerpt. 

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