You probably know Mark Twain as the guy who gave us a rascally boy on a raft and a Connecticut Yankee making a mess of King Arthur’s court. He was the ultimate skeptic. A man who chewed on tobacco and spit out sarcasm about organized religion like it was a sport.
So, why on earth did he spend twelve years researching and two years writing a reverent, almost hagiographic novel about a teenage Catholic martyr?
Honestly, it’s the biggest curveball in American literary history.
Twain didn't just write Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc; he considered it his best work. Better than Huckleberry Finn. Better than Tom Sawyer. He once said, "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well."
Most people haven't even heard of it.
The Mystery of Twain’s Obsession
It started with a piece of paper.
Legend has it—and Twain was a man who loved a good legend—that he was walking down a street in Hannibal when a wind-blown leaf from a book about Joan of Arc slapped against him. He was a teenager at the time. He read about her being in prison, how the "English ruffians" treated her, and it sparked a fire that didn't go out for half a century.
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He became obsessed.
This wasn't just a casual interest. He spent over a decade digging through the National Archives of France. He read the original trial transcripts—documents recorded under oath, which he claimed made her life the most unique in history because it was "the only story of a human life which comes to us under oath."
He wasn't looking for jokes here.
Why did he hide his name?
When the story first started appearing in Harper’s Magazine in 1895, it wasn't signed "Mark Twain." It was attributed to "Sieur Louis de Conte," a fictionalized version of Joan's actual page and secretary.
Twain was terrified.
He knew if people saw his name, they’d expect a punchline. He didn't want people laughing at Joan. He wanted them to see the "divine soul" he’d fallen in love with. He only admitted he wrote it once the serialization was nearly finished and the critics had already started praising its "serious" tone.
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What Mark Twain Got Right (and Wrong)
Twain’s version of the Maid of Orléans is basically a superhero.
He portrays her as the "genius of patriotism." In his eyes, she was a flawless, unselfish miracle who appeared in the "rottenest" century of human history. He didn't just admire her military tactics—though he spent pages detailing her skill with artillery—he was fascinated by her wit.
The Trial of the Century
If you want to see Twain’s real genius in this book, skip to the trial.
This is where the skeptic meets the saint. He uses the actual historical records to show a 19-year-old girl, illiterate and exhausted, outsmarting a room full of the most powerful, educated men in France.
- The "Voices": While Twain was an agnostic, he didn't mock Joan’s visions. He treated them with a weird kind of respect, even if he privately thought they were just manifestations of her own pure character.
- The Humor: Despite the gravity, Twain couldn't help but include a few "Twain-isms." He created a character called "The Paladin," a childhood friend of Joan’s who is basically a 15th-century version of a tall-tale teller.
- The Accuracy: He was surprisingly faithful to the timeline. He didn't invent her victories at Orléans or Patay. He just gave them a cinematic, emotional weight that a dry history book lacks.
But he did "Americanize" her a bit.
Twain’s Joan feels less like a medieval mystic and more like an idealized Victorian daughter. Some scholars, like those at the Center for Mark Twain Studies, suggest he was actually writing about his own daughter, Susy, who died shortly after the book was published. Joan was his "plaster saint," a symbol of innocence in a world he was increasingly finding disgusting.
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Why You Should Actually Read It
It’s long. It’s dense. It’s got some archaic language that can be a bit of a slog.
But it’s also incredibly moving.
You’ve got a man who made a career out of mocking humanity, finding one person he actually believed in. It's a "love letter" across five centuries.
If you're used to the biting satire of Letters from the Earth, this will feel like it was written by a different person. And in a way, it was. It was written by Samuel Clemens the father and the dreamer, not Mark Twain the performer.
Practical Steps for the Modern Reader
If you want to dive into Mark Twain Joan of Arc, don't just grab the first copy you see.
- Find the Unabridged Version: Some modern reprints cut out the "Translator’s Preface" or the "Sieur de Conte" framing. You need those to understand the "fake" history Twain was trying to build.
- Read the Trial Scenes First: If you’re struggling with the childhood chapters in Domrémy, jump to the third "book" of the novel. The legal drama is where the pacing really picks up.
- Compare it to the Transcripts: If you're a real history nerd, look up the Trial of Condemnation records. It’s wild to see how many of the "smart" answers Joan gives in the book are things she actually said in real life.
Twain didn't write this for money. He wrote it for love.
Even if you don't care about 15th-century France, seeing a cynical genius lose his heart to a peasant girl is a story worth your time. It reminds us that even the most hardened skeptics are usually just looking for something worth believing in.
Actionable Insight: To get the most out of this work, start by reading Twain's short essay Saint Joan of Arc (1904). It functions as a condensed version of his philosophy on her character and serves as a perfect primer before tackling the 600-page novel. This will help you identify the specific traits—her "pathos," her "simplicity," and her "unconscious" greatness—that Twain spent twelve years trying to capture.