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Secondary sourceBook1919

Saint Joan of Arc

Mark Twain · 1919

An 1919 essay by Mark Twain about Joan of Arc, published as a short book by Harper & Brothers. It is a later personal reflection rather than a contemporary source.

Shows Mark Twain's later literary reflection on Joan, one of several modern writers who retold her story.

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Saint Joan of ArcPDF · 68 pages
Mark Twain, Saint Joan of Arc, 1919. Scanned book (PDF), Internet Archive.

About this source

What it is

This is a short book of about 32 pages by Mark Twain, published in 1919 by Harper & Brothers in New York. The title page lists Twain's other works, including Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. The scanned copy in the Internet Archive is a PDF of the printed book, not Twain's manuscript.

Why it matters

Twain wrote about Joan long after her death in 1431, so his essay tells us more about how an American writer of the early twentieth century saw her than about the medieval events themselves. Twain was a famous author, and his fascination with Joan shows how her story was retold in modern literature.

Look closer

  • What does Twain choose to emphasize about Joan, and what does he leave out?
  • How might Twain's own time and beliefs shape the way he describes her?
  • Why might a writer of 1919 be drawn to a fifteenth-century figure?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Joan of Arc on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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