The Grand Panjandrum of Mark Twain Studies

It was on June 29, 1992, or very shortly after that date, that I first met Bob Hirst. I remember the date because during that first meeting I happened to be sitting in Bob's office the moment he got a phone call conveying the sad news that Walter Blair had just died. I'm not sure if I then had any idea who Blair was, but thirty-three years ago there were a great many things about people in Mark Twain studies that I didn't know. At that moment, I was just getting started on my first Mark Twain book, Mark Twain A to Z, and was feeling utterly inadequate to the task. I hadn't written a word about Mark Twain since studying Huckleberry Finn in my tenth-grade English class and, as a matter of fact, never took another literature class at any level. My only credentials were advanced degrees in history and authorship of several respected reference books about Africa. Nevertheless, there I was, taking up space in the Inner Sanctum of Mark Twain research in the presence of a man who seemed to me to be to be the Grand Panjandrum, having the gall to pretend that I was qualified to write a comprehensive reference work about Mark Twain. If doing something like that doesn't constitute genuine chutzpah, what does? But first, let me explain what led me to being in that uncomfortable situation.As Mark Twain once said, “Accident is a word which I constantly make use of when I am talking to myself about the chain of incidents which constituted my life.” The same is true for me: accidents have played an outsized role in my transformation into a Mark Twain scholar, and one of those accidents was a key to my first meeting with Bob. I might never have worked up the nerve to approach Bob were it not for the chance fact that my sister was an old college friend of Dahlia Armon, a former member of Bob's editorial staff (and, as I later learned, Walter Blair's partner in the preparation of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians and Other Unfinished Stories). Even now, I feel a little uneasy to think that had they never met, my entry into Mark Twain studies would have been very different, for it was thanks to Dahlia's encouragement that I worked up the nerve to meet Bob, without whose strong support I may never have written Mark Twain A to Z and all else that has followed.As I happily began working on my book, I was blissfully unaware that a similar reference book—The Mark Twain Encyclopedia—was nearing completion. Had I known about it from the start, I might not have signed up for Mark Twain A to Z and thus never met Bob. After all, how could one person with no background in the field write a reference book that could compete with a similar book written by nearly two hundred area specialists? Burdened with thoughts like that, stepping into the presence of the Grand Panjandrum would have been even more intimidating.Well, as anyone who has ever had the privilege of dealing with Bob well knows, I needn't have worried. Bob couldn't have been more welcoming. Right away, I learned that one of his outstanding characteristics is his attitude that Mark Twain belongs to everyone—even a literary ignoramus like me! He immediately expressed interest in my writing project, encouraged me to carry on, and loaded me with useful information. One of the things I came to love about Bob is his down-to-earth nature and complete lack of pretense. I recall his once saying that he disliked all forms of formality. After having observed him dozens of times in multiple settings over the years, I have no doubt he meant what he said. His disdain for formality combines with his natural modesty to make him one of the easiest people in the world with whom to deal–not exactly the fearsome Grand Panjandrum I had expected a person in his position to be. (Speaking of his modesty: Note how infrequently his name appears on the title pages of Mark Twain Project publications!)Here I should mention another reason for Bob's warm welcome: We had a shared experience that probably made me more simpatico in his eyes than the average Mark Twain researcher. Like him, I had worked as an editor in an NEH-funded document-editing project–the Marcus Garvey Papers at UCLA. Consequently, I doubtless had better-than-average appreciation of both the underlying purpose of the Mark Twain Papers and Project as well as the complex and often intolerable demands made on a person in Bob's position. Every time I've sat in Bob's office and gazed at the stacks of books and papers almost engulfing his desk I've thought about the nearly impossible workload weighing him down. Directing the project entails much more than organizing and overseeing complex editorial work. It also involves a never-ending struggle to secure funding from foundations, unpredictable government agencies, and private donors, while at the same time dealing with a university administration and a press that aren't always sympathetic. Meanwhile, Bob is under constant assault from researchers, journalists, and members of the public who besiege him with requests for information and favors and don't hesitate to criticize him for what they perceive as the slow pace of the Project's publishing program.Charges that the Project has moved too slowly to publish its books tie into what I perceive as one of Bob's most admirable principles–the belief that the Project should strive to make every publication as nearly perfect as possible, so that its work will never have to be redone–a sharp contrast with the attitudes of his predecessors. Anyone familiar with the history of the Project knows that some of its early books did not meet that standard and had to be redone.As one who spent six years helping to organize and edit collections of documents, write grant proposals, and deal with outside researchers, I experienced—on a much smaller scale—some of what Bob has endured for forty-five years. Frankly, I am astonished that not only has he lasted so long but has preserved his sense of humor and his equanimity. That says a great deal about his commitment to making Mark Twain available to the world. In the thirty-three years that I have known him, I've come to realize that he–like the rest of us—doesn't love everyone in the field equally. Nevertheless, in keeping with his belief that Mark Twain belongs to everyone, he has never—to the best of my knowledge—limited the access of any serious researcher to the vast resources of the Mark Twain Papers. Some years ago, the Project was regularly visited by a researcher whose demeanor was so abrasive that the Project's administrative assistant eventually refused to retrieve materials for that person. Although Bob wasn't overly fond of that individual either, he nevertheless was willing to take the time to chase down the researcher's requests for files himself.Another example of Bob's willingness to share Mark Twain with the world is an experience I had myself. In 2011, when the first volume of the University of California edition of The Autobiography of Mark Twain was becoming a runaway best-seller, I was surprised to be asked to edit a Mark Twain autobiography volume for Penguin Classics. The suggestion struck me as a blatant attempt to capitalize on the success of the University of California Press edition, so I hesitated to undertake the job, thinking it might be a betrayal of the Mark Twain Project. Nevertheless, the next time I visited Berkeley, I hesitantly told Bob about Penguin's suggestion. I was prepared to turn down the project if Bob opposed it, but I shouldn't have been surprised by his reaction. Not only did he approve the idea of my editing an autobiography edition, he was enthusiastic about it! The reason, of course, was his support of every serious effort to share Mark Twain with the world. For that, and for many other reasons, he has my everlasting thanks.