The American Claimant

Novel by Mark Twain

The American Claimant

First edition

Author| Mark Twain
Illustrator| Dan Beard[1]
Language| English
Genre| Humor, Satire, alternate history, science fiction, fantasy
Publisher| Charles L. Webster

Publication date

| 1892
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages| 291 pp

The American Claimant is an 1892 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. Twain wrote the novel with the help of phonographic dictation,[2] the first author (according to Twain himself) to do so.[3] This was also (according to Twain) an attempt to write a book without mention of the weather, the first of its kind in fictitious literature (although the first sentence of the second paragraph references weather: "breezy fine morning"). Indeed, all the weather is contained in an appendix, at the back of the book, which the reader is encouraged to turn to from time to time.

## Plot

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The American Claimant is a comedy of mistaken identities and multiple role switches. Its cast of characters include an American enamored of British hereditary aristocracy and a British earl entranced by American democracy.

## Characters

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Colonel Mulberry Sellers: An eccentric white-headed old man who becomes the rightful heir to the Earl of Rossmore after the death of his relative, Simon Lathers. According to his wife, Sellers is a "scheming, generous, good-hearted, moonshiny, hopeful, no-account failure" who is well beloved for his generosity and approachability. Although many of his eccentric money-making schemes are failures, he occasionally "makes a strike," as he calls it, and makes quite a bit of money. One such strike is an exceedingly popular toy, "Pigs in the Clover," which he invents and patents.

According to the tin signs by his door, Sellers is an attorney at law and claim agent, a materializer, a hypnotizer, and a mind-cure dabbler. He has also been named "Perpetual Member of the Diplomatic Body representing the multifarious sovereignties and civilizations of the globe near the republican court of the United States of America."

The explanatory note at the beginning of the novel indicates that Colonel Sellers is the same character as Eschol Sellers in the first edition of Twain's earlier novel Gilded Age (1873) and Beriah Sellers in later editions. The note also identifies Colonel Sellers as the same character as Mulberry Sellers in John T. Raymond's dramatization of Gilded Age.

Washington Hawkins: The Congressional Delegate from Cherokee Strip in the far west, who partners with Colonel Sellers in several of his schemes. Hawkins is described as a "stoutish, discouraged-looking man whose general aspect suggested that he was fifty years old, but whose hair swore to a hundred." At the beginning of the novel he has been living with his wife, Louise, and their children for the last fifteen years.

Sally (Gwendolen) Sellers: Daughter of Colonel Mulberry Sellers and Polly Sellers. She attends Rowena-Ivanhoe College, "the selectest and most aristocratic seat of learning for young ladies" in the US. Like her father, Sally is given to Romantic aspirations and delusions of grandeur. She happily takes the name Gwendolen after her father becomes the rightful heir of the Earl of Rossmore. However, the narrative describes Sally as having a "double personality": She is both Sally Sellers, who is "practical and democratic," and Lady Gwendolen, who is "romantic and aristocratic." During the day she works hard designing and sewing dresses to help financially support her family, and in the evening she upholds the shadowy fantasy of the family's nobility. She falls in love with Howard Tracy (Viscount Berkeley) at first sight and later renounces her aspirations of aristocracy in order to be with him.

Berkeley Rossmore (Howard Tracy): The only son and heir of the Earl of Rossmore. According to the narrative, his full name is the Honourable Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount-Berkeley, of Cholmondeley Castle, Warwickshire(which the narrative tells us is pronounced "K'koobry Thlanover Marshbanks Sellers Vycount Barkly, of Chumly Castle, Warrikshr"). At the beginning of the novel, Berkeley announces his intention to go to America and "change places" with Simon Lathers, the man he considers the rightful heir. He wishes to "retire...from a false existence, a false position, and begin [his] life over again, begin it right--begin it on the level of mere manhood, unassisted by factitious aids, and succeed or fail by pure merit or the want of it. I will go to America, where all men are equal and all have an equal chance; I will live or die, sink or swim, win or lose as just a man—that alone, and not a single helping gaud or fiction back of it." Shortly after his arrival to the United States, the hotel in which he is staying catches fire. During his escape, Berkeley snatches up the cowboy hat and distinctive clothes of a bank robber from the Cherokee Strip whom, coincidentally, Hawkins has been ineffectually tracking. When Berkeley is seen in this garb, Hawkins and Colonel Sellers believe that this cowboy-hatted man is the desperado; everyone else believes that he is an English cowboy. After the newspapers announce that Berkeley has died in the fire, he decides to renounce his former identity and calls himself Howard Tracy, determining to work for his living according to democratic principles.

## Gallery

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* "He was constructing what seemed to be some kind of frail mechanical toy". Illustration to 1896 edition.

## See also

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* Mark Twain bibliography

## References

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1. ^ Facsimile of the original 1st edition.
2. ^ In Love With Technology, as Long as It's Dusty, a March 25, 1999 article from The New York Times
3. ^ Twain Rolls On To New Heights, a July 15, 1998 article from The New York Times

## External links

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* The American Claimant at Project Gutenberg
* Special Collections from the UC Berkeley Library website, depicting Twain's preface to The American Claimant from the original manuscript
* The American Claimant public domain audiobook at LibriVox

* v
* t
* e

Mark Twain

Bibliography

Novels|

* The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
* The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
* The Prince and the Pauper
* Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
* A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
* The American Claimant
* Tom Sawyer Abroad
* Pudd'nhead Wilson
* Tom Sawyer, Detective
* Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
* A Double Barrelled Detective Story
* A Horse's Tale
* The Mysterious Stranger
* Hellfire Hotchkiss

Short stories|

* "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"
* "Cannibalism in the Cars"
* "A Literary Nightmare"
* "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage"
* "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn"
* "1601"
* "The Stolen White Elephant"
* "Luck"
* "The Million Pound Bank Note"
* "A Double Barrelled Detective Story"
* "Those Extraordinary Twins"
* "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg"
* "A Dog's Tale"
* "Extracts from Adam's Diary"
* "The War Prayer"
* "Eve's Diary"
* "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven"
* "My Platonic Sweetheart"
* "Advice for Good Little Girls"

Collections|

* Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance
* Sketches New and Old
* Mark Twain's Library of Humor
* Merry Tales
* The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories
* The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories

Plays|

* Is He Dead?

Essays|

* "The Awful German Language"
* "On the Decay of the Art of Lying"
* "Advice to Youth"
* How to Tell a Story and Other Essays
* "Concerning the Jews"
* "To the Person Sitting in Darkness"
* "Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany"
* "What Is Man?"
* "The United States of Lyncherdom"
* "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses"
* Letters from the Earth

Nonfiction|

* Territorial Enterprise letters
* Letters from Hawaii
* The Innocents Abroad
* Roughing It
* Old Times on the Mississippi
* A Tramp Abroad
* Life on the Mississippi
* Following the Equator
* Is Shakespeare Dead?
* Autobiography of Mark Twain (Chapters from My Autobiography)
* King Leopold's Soliloquy
* The Private History of a Campaign That Failed
* Christian Science

Speeches|

* "Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism"
* "Votes for Women"

Places
and events|

* Family cabin
* Birthplace State Historic Site
* State Park
* Boyhood home and museum
* Mark Twain Cave
* Mark Twain in Nevada
* Territorial Enterprise
* Sagebrush School
* Quarry Farm
* Mark Twain House
* Stormfield
* Twain–Ament indemnities controversy

Popular culture|

* Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
* Mark Twain Tonight!
* The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944)
* The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985)
* Mark Twain (2001 documentary)
* Twain and Shaw Do Lunch (2011 play)
* Mark Twain: The Musical

Family|

* Olivia Langdon Clemens (wife)
* Susy Clemens (daughter)
* Clara Clemens (daughter)
* Jean Clemens (daughter)
* John M. Clemens (father)
* Jane Lampton Clemens (mother)
* Orion Clemens (brother)

Related|

* Jap Herron
* Center For Mark Twain Studies
* Mark Twain National Forest
* National Tom Sawyer Days

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