Banned authors clobber the banners!

I was unaware that my favorite library once banned a book by my favorite author. In 1885, the Concord Free Public Library banned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. You should never slight Mark Twain. He responded immediately to the ban by declaring:

“Apparently, the Concord library has condemned Huck as ‘trash and only suitable for the slums.’ This will sell us another twenty-five thousand copies for sure!”

Too bad Twain is not around to chasten those who still want to condemn Huck. Nowadays, they want to ban the book for using the n-word. Ironic, since his intent was to expose and ridicule racism.

Flavorwire has published 10 Famous Authors’ Funniest Responses to Their Books Being Banned. The moral of the story is to never attack someone who knows how to wield a keyboard. My favorite is Ray Bradbury’s reponse.

“… it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmild teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. ”

Related posts
Best Western Writer of all Time
Mark Twain Tells Us How to Write

Musings about Concord, Massachusetts

Creative Librarians

Libraries that are architectural wonders

Favorite Western Writer

Mark Twain in Virginia City by Andy Thomas

My favorite Western writer is Mark Twain. Owen Wister is second. These are probably not names that come immediately to mind when thinking about Westerns, but both of these authors actually experienced the American frontier. They were there and they wrote about it so fondly that the Wild West became a cultural icon. The whole world devoured Western stories. The American Western became a staple of fiction, Hollywood, television, and daydreams.

In Roughing It, Twain tells tall tales about his time in Virginia City. It is supposed to be a nonfiction memoir, but is probably about as truthful as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I suspect the two men would have admired each other's ability to make a point by telling a story.

Philip Pullman said, "Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever." The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a perfect example of this axiom. Below are a few handwritten pages from this great American classic. 

Handwritten manuscripts fascinate me. I used James Madison's convention notes when I wrote Tempest at Dawn. His notes were over 230,000 words; all recorded by dipping a quill into an inkwell. I marvel that in olden days, authors  maintained continuity without the cut and paste capabilities of a modern computer. Before word processors, writers had to keep future sentences in their head as their hand scrambled to keep up with their thoughts. Tough work that required exceptional mental agility. I thank Bill Gates daily for MS Word. 

Note: the original title does not include the word The. Recent editions have generally added The.