Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc: By the Sieur Louis de Conte (her Page and Secretary) freely translated out of the ancient French into modern … Archives of France by Jean Francois Alden

Mark Twain’s work on Joan of Arc is titled in full, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte, who is identified further as Joan’s page and secretary. The fictional work is presented as a translation from a manuscript by Jean Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, “Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France”. Originally, Mark Twain’s novel was published as a serialization in Harper’s Magazine beginning in 1895 and it was published in book form in 1896. At Twain’s request, Harper’s Magazine published it anonymously to avoid expectations for it to be humorous. The “de Conte” work is a fictionalized version of that of Joan of Arc’s page, Louis de Contes, providing narrative unity to the story. de Conte is presented as an individual who was with Joan during the three major phases of her life–as a youth in Domremy, as the commander of the army of Charles VII of France on military campaign, and as a defendant at her trial in Rouen. The book is presented as a translation of material by Alden among de Conte’s memoirs, which were written in his later years for the benefit of his descendants. The novel was penned under a pseudonym, a second one for Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens. Twain based his descriptions of Joan of Arc on his daughter, Susy Clemens, as he remembered her at the age of seventeen. The author had a personal fascination with Joan of Arc. The work has a very different feel and flow from Twain’s other works. There is a distinct lack of humor, so prevalent in his other works. This is a mature Twain, writing about a subject of personal interest to him. He was first attracted to Joan of Arc in the early 1850s when he found a leaf from a biography of her and asked his brother Henry whether she was real. In addition, Twain arguably worked harder on this book than any other. In a letter to H.H. Rogers he stated, “I have never done any work before that cost so much thinking and weighing and measuring and planning and cramming … on this last third I have constantly used five French sources and five English ones, and I think no telling historical nugget in any of them has escaped me.” Twain considered this, his last finished novel, to be his best and most important work