The subtitle of Joe B. Fulton's fine new book gives an accurate overview of his overall argument, with emphasis on the word “how.” In Our Mark Twain (1910), William Dean Howells called Mark Twain “the Lincoln of our literature,” and much Twain criticism has focussed on that outcome; instead, Fulton focusses on the process, fully and ably tracing the way Samuel Clemens moved in his life and his work from a supporter of slavery in the American South to a champion of freedom all over the world. Fulton convincingly argues that Howells was a bit off the mark in calling Twain “the most desouthernized Southerner I have ever known,” replacing that phrase with “reconstructed Southerner.” He parallels American reconstruction with Mark Twain's own reconstruction, in a study that will have a lasting effect on the way we read both Twain's biography and his works.

The first four chapters focus on concentrated periods in Clemens's life up to 1869, with the last giving an overview from 1870 to 1910. The greatest strength of those first four chapters is the way Fulton carefully historicizes the events surrounding Clemens's life and work. The first chapter, “Mark Twain's Missouri and the Civil War, 1835–1861,” lays out the importance of Missouri's status as a border state and its effect on Clemens's upbringing and training. The bulk of the chapter concerns Clemens's brief time as a Confederate soldier, or, more aptly, a bushwhacker, using “The Private History of a Campaign that Failed” (1885) as its center, showing how this short piece established Twain's persona as a “reconstructed Southerner.” As he does elsewhere in The Reconstruction of Mark Twain, Fulton artfully combines history, biography, and literary criticism to help untangle fact from fiction as he begins detailing the process of Twain's metamorphosis. The second chapter, “Twain's Civil War in Nevada, 1861–1864,” goes against much Twain biography and criticism by seeing these years not only as Twain's avoidance of the Civil War, but as a time that he was deeply embroiled in regional and national politics concerning the war. Fulton's analysis of the Sanitary Fund incident, in which Mark Twain so enraged Nevada that he had to escape to San Francisco, is particularly enlightening.

That move west is covered in the third chapter, “Twain's San Francisco Satires, 1864–1866.” This hefty chapter covers only two years, but it reveals Mark Twain deeply involved politically, charting clearly the stages toward his reconstruction. Again historicizing well, Fulton recovers for the reader the political context of pieces that have been most often read for their humor. Especially insightful are his readings of “Lucretia Smith's Soldier” (1864) and Twain's complex reactions to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. By the end of this crucial period, Fulton argues, Mark Twain had established his reconstructed southerner persona. Chapter 4, “Twain, Reconstruction, and the Impeachment Crisis, 1866–1869,” takes a close look at Twain's time in Washington, DC as a political reporter. Fulton is especially good on the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, showing the subtlety of Twain's position. Fulton is convincing in his argument that the Twain persona established by this time was a precursor to his stance as an international gadfly against imperialism in the last decade of his life.

The final chapter, “The Reconstructed Mark Twain, 1870–1910,” covers more ground and so cannot be as fully historicized as the earlier chapters, but Fulton provides a good overview of the ways Twain's reconstruction was central to works like “A True Story” (1874), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” (1901). Although Fulton mentions George Washington Cable as a fellow reconstructed southerner, he could perhaps have developed more fully Cable's influence on Twain's evolving racial attitudes during their 1884–85 lecture tour. Still, the strong conclusion to the book links Mark Twain with Abraham Lincoln, echoing Howells's words, but now illuminated more fully for our understanding.

The Reconstruction of Mark Twain is an excellent book, important for Mark Twain studies, but also for studies of the American Civil War and for American studies in general. Joe B. Fulton's deft blend of history, biography, and literary criticism should serve as a model for those who wish to write historically grounded criticism.