Mark Twain, The American Claimant

Max Lester Loges (Lamar University)
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The American Claimant

was written during a period in Samuel Clemens’ life when he was desperately in need of money but extremely short on ideas. Like many other writers or film studios in similar situations, he imagined that a successful sequel would be the solution to his dilemma. Colonel Sellers, one of the protagonists in

The American Claimant

, had been one of the more memorable characters in his first novel,

The Gilded Age

(1873). Since then he had used Sellers as a character in two unsuccessful plays,

Colonel Sellers

(1874) and

Colonel Sellers as a Scientist

(1883), the second of which he had co-authored with William Dean Howells.

Like The Gilded Age, central conflict in The American Claimant is built on a family interest of Clemens’, i.e. a legend coming down from his mother’s

1252 words

Citation: Loges, Max Lester. "The American Claimant". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 December 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1584, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1584 The American Claimant 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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