A study of male friendship in America in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Mark Twain and Male Friendship examines the relationships between Mark Twain and Joseph Twichell (his pastor), William Dean Howells (author, cultural commentator, and critic) and Henry H. Rogers (the Standard Oil magnate), to illustrate and explore the workings of their friendships. Starting with the biographical, it uses existing work on male friendship and on gender role as a springboard to examine changing conceptions of masculinity and of men's roles both in marriage and in the larger social network ... More

A study of male friendship in America in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Mark Twain and Male Friendship examines the relationships between Mark Twain and Joseph Twichell (his pastor), William Dean Howells (author, cultural commentator, and critic) and Henry H. Rogers (the Standard Oil magnate), to illustrate and explore the workings of their friendships. Starting with the biographical, it uses existing work on male friendship and on gender role as a springboard to examine changing conceptions of masculinity and of men's roles both in marriage and in the larger social networks of their times. The friendships are sited, too, in terms of status, race, and social privilege, and how such factors conditioned the form of these relationships and the way they functioned. The book also explores the friendships in terms of the representative cultural roles of those involved—and the interactions between the respective fields of literature, religion, and business. The friendships thus allow extraordinary insight both into these four lives, and into the larger American culture that surrounded and formed them. This is an original and important work that adds a great deal to our understanding of these men and their period.