Mark Twain & Critics

It’s been an eventful 24 hours. I received the first printed pages of the Elizabeth Custer book from my editor and had to redo numerous endnotes because sections of the various chapters had been moved from one to the other. Revisions and corrections had to be turned back into Globe early this morning. I want so much for this book about Libbie Custer to be accurate. The new information contained in this tome is fascinating and I’m sure will be challenged by someone. Seems like everyone has an opinion about history. Voltaire claimed that history is “Fables agreed upon.” Matthew Arnold wrote that history is “A vast Mississippi of falsehood.” And Henry Ford claimed that “History is more or less bunk.” Maybe they’re right. History is certainly a debatable subject. No matter how precise I try to be with the books I’ve written there has always been someone out there who thinks the history they know is 100% right and what I know is 100% wrong. When the Roy Rogers/Dale Evans book was released a few years ago, a gentlemen sought me out at a signing to let me know that I had their story all wrong. The man informed me that Roy had a younger brother that was a troublemaker. He claimed Roy’s brother was doing time in a prison in Illinois and that the true story of Roy Rogers couldn‘t be told without bringing that matter to the public‘s attention. I tried to tell the enthusiastic critic that Roy Rogers didn’t have a brother, only sisters. The man cursed me and told me I was a poor researcher. I did double check my facts with Roy’s son, Dusty after the incident and Dusty assured me that Roy did not have a brother. I fully expect to get the same kind of treatment with the Elizabeth Custer book. After writing twenty-three books about various historical matters you’d think I’d be used to it, but I’m not. There have always been critics and some of their remarks are quite memorable. For example, Thomas Babington Marcaulay wrote, “The more I read Socrates, the less I wonder they poisoned him.” George Jean Nathan called author J.M. Barrie’s work, “The triumph of sugar over diabetes.” Mark Twain called Edgar Allan Poe’s prose “Unreadable – like Jane Austen’s.” He then added, “No, there’s a difference. I could read his prose on a salary, but not Jane’s.” I’m not comparing any of my work to that of Socrates, Barrie, Poe, or Austen. I’m simply noting that authors much better than myself have been skewered. So when I recall a review I received that read, “This is an author worth watching – not reading, just watching,” I’m comforted by the fact that I’m not the first writer to take a hit and I won’t be the last.