Mark Twain in Salon

Last week, the on-line magazine Salon reprinted a couple of pieces about Mark Twain. The first looks at how newspaperman Samuel Clemens made himself into a “brand” by borrowing the pseudonym “Mark Twain” from a humorous essay in Vanity Fair while the second is an excerpt about Christianity from volume II of Twain’s Autobiography, which will be published on Oct. 5.

I’m not wholly convinced by the explanation that he took his pen name from Vanity Fair, although the truth will likely never be known. I discussed the debate about the source of his name in the first of my two books about Twain. Check out pages 71-72.