Joan of Arc

Very few people know that Mark Twain wrote a major work on Joan of Arc. Still fewer know that he considered it not only his most important, but also his best work. He spent twelve years in research and many months in France doing archival work, and then made several attempts until he felt he finally had the story he wanted to tell. He reached his conclusion about Joan's unique place in history only after studying in detail accounts written by both sides: the French, for whom she raised an army to return the Dauphin to the throne, and the English, who fought the French in the Hundred Years' War and were ultimately Joan's executioners. This is a fascinating and remarkably accurate biography of the life and mission of Joan of Arc told by one of this country's greatest storytellers. "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best." -- Mark Twain "Twain's understanding of history and Joan's place in it accounts for his regarding his book Joan of Arc as worth all of his other books together."-- Edward Wagonknecht, author of Mark Twain: The Man and His Work Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910), was born in Florida, Missouri. A printer and later a Mississippi riverboat pilot, he adopted his pen name from riverboat lingo meaning water two fathoms deep. His masterpieces, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), are not only classics of humorous writing but also a graphic picture of nineteenth-century America.