Synopses & Reviews
An unpublished Mark Twain story surfaces 125 years after it was first written.
Set in the quaint hollow of Deer Lick, a mythical town resembling Mark Twain's Hannibal, Missouri, this bizarre tale chronicles the fortunes of a humble farmer, John Gray, determined to marry off his daughter, Mary, to the scion of the town's wealthiest family. But the sudden appearance of a stranger found lying unconscious in the snow not only derails Gray's plans but also leads to a mysterious murder whose solution lies at the heart of this captivating story.
Written in 1876 between the completion of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the commencement of work on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage anticipates many of the themes found in Twain's later works. Twain, already one of the country's most celebrated authors, composed this story in the year of America's centennial as a work of entertainment, a so-called "blind novelette." He then dared other great writers of the day, including Henry James and William Dean Howells, to compose other endings to the story, but the competition never took place (as Roy Blount Jr. comments with the aid of some historical hindsight, "Can any sane person, we may ask, have expected to get Henry James's juices flowing with a plot abounding in bumpkins, spleen, assault and battery?") and the story was thought by many to have been lost.
In addition to a Foreword and Afterword by the Southern novelist and humorist Roy Blount Jr. that places the story perfectly in its proper historical and literary context, the book is also graced by six newly commissioned illustrations by Peter de Sève, whose atmospheric renderings compellingly re-create the rural world of nineteenth-century Missouri in all its quirky detail. Even the crusty Twain, who was renowned for his tussles with illustrators, no doubt would have smiled at these faithful interpretations.
Published here in book form for the first time, A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage allows us, once again, to celebrate the literary genius of Mark Twain, nearly one hundred years after his death. Its appearance should be a cause for celebration.
Review
"Between writing Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain had an idea for a collaboration: He'd sketch up a 'skeleton plot' of a story, then invite leading writers of the day to have a go at their own versions of the tale....While the project was never completed, the keepers of Twain's estate have finally turned loose the master's 1876 manuscript. It's not vintage Twain, but it's still fun and a pretty fine effort....What's equally intriguing about the book is Roy Blount Jr.'s excellent analysis and commentary. Blount provides fascinating background information on Twain's competitiveness, his politics (during the story's writing, Twain was fixated on the election of President Rutherford B. Hayes, which prefigured the Bush/Gore Florida fiasco), and his personality, which Blount says combined the 'disreputable and good-hearted' side of Huck with the 'manipulative and reputation-hungry' side of Tom." Paul Evans, Book Magazine
Review
"As Blount explains in his energetic and enticing commentary, for all his fame and influence, Twain failed to get [his] pet scheme off the ground....Set in the small, anxious town of Deer Lick, and involving love, greed, murder, a mysterious stranger, and a family feud, [A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage is] a fun-to-read minor work of historical interest." Donna Seaman, Booklist
Review
"The Atlantic Monthly, to great hoopla, recently resurrected an 1876 Twain manuscript; in this slim volume, it is reproduced, along with insightful comments from Roy Blount Jr. The question is, do we have a forgotten masterpiece? Or is the Atlantic playing a game like the Duke and the Dauphin's Royal Nonesuch in Huckleberry Finn, inflating expectations and leading up merely to a diddly stag show?....Twain's story is, admittedly, a trifle. Roy Blount directs his comments to the reason Twain put aside Huckleberry Finn to write it, leading him to speculate interestingly, albeit somewhat irrelevantly, on Twain's life and politics, which were shifting in 1876. Altogether, this Twain curiosa is less interesting in itself than for what Blount makes of it." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Roy Blount Jr.'s recent books include the memoir
Be Sweet and
Roy Blount's Book of Southern Humor.
Peter de Sève's illustrations have appeared on the cover of The New Yorker, and he has created characters for Disney and Dreamworks. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.