Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

Personal Recollections Of Joan Of Arc

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in the words of the published book, "Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France".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 Domrémy, 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.

Because the copyright has expired, the work is in the public domain, and may be found for free on the Internet. The most current edition of the book has been published by Ignatius Press since 1989, and it also contains an essay by Mark Twain entitled Saint Joan of Arc in an appendix.