In A Moralist Gone Wild, Taro Maeyashiki traces the arc of Mark Twain’s intellectual evolution, showing how a gradual shift in the author’s philosophical and moral stance is reflected in his writing.
Starting with an overview of Twain’s “eventful and turbulent” life, A Moralist Gone Wild takes us with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to “freedom” from society’s rules on Jackson’s Island, down the Mississippi River on a raft with Huck and runaway slave Jim, and with Huck and Tom out into the wild West “among the Indians.” Maeyashiki then takes up Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, whose heroine resembles the author’s own daughter Susy, who died tragically of meningitis while the novel was being written, before turning to The Chronicle of Young Satan, which reflects the darkened worldview that Twain came to hold during his final years.
Offering fresh insights with each chapter, this groundbreaking work goes a long way toward bridging the gap between the witty good humor of Twain’s early work and the acerbic world-weariness of his later writings.
A Moralist Gone Wild is available in all Amazon stores, in paperback or Kindle ebook.