In a letter written to William Dean Howells dated January 18, 1909, Samuel L. Clemens, responding to an article Howells wrote on Edgar Allan Poe, comments on Poe, "To me his prose is unreadable--like Jane Austen's. No, there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's" (841). Though Clemens never had to read any of Poe's writings "on salary," it is clear that he knew some of Poe's short stories and made use of various devices and themes which he found there in his own fiction, the method by which he earned most of his "salary." In "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut," a wonderful but relatively little-known short story written in early 1876, Clemens borrows and refashions a major theme from Poe's "William Wilson," a character from "Hop Frog," and a device from "The Raven." While the borrowing is interesting enough, it is the refashioning and manipulation of Poe's ideas into his own which fascinates, looking, to borrow from Harold Bloom, like an attempt on the part of the later writer to destroy the influence of a precursor and establish his own identity as a writer of serious fiction.

That Edgar Allan Poe could exert a precursor's influence on Samuel Clemens is not a far-fetched notion at all. Poe's attempts to distance himself from his stories through his use of unreliable narrators has its analog in Clemens's development of his most famous literary creation, Mark Twain, his buffoonish alter-ego and unreliable narrator. Like Poe, the hard-working editor of various magazines and journals and literary critic, Clemens, the hard working editor of the Buffalo Express, needed to distance his respectable business person/citizen of wealth and consequence self from his satiric and disreputable platform and literary persona. Clemens was also, like Poe, responsible for producing a steady output of writing and had his fingers on the pulse of popular entertainment in order to sell newspapers. He was not above writing the occasional hoax and/or sensational piece to boost circulation. He was a professional writer first, and only a burgeoning and incidental literary artist during the years leading up to "The Carnival of Crime." Like Poe, he was beholden to writing for his "salary," but, unlike Poe, he made a great deal of money from sales of his first four books (The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, The Gilded Age [with Charles Dudley Warner], and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer). As a "success," he could afford to live in respectable circumstances and associate with educated and intellectual people after moving to Hartford in 1874.

Clemens's dislike of Poe is immaterial to his use of Poe's ideas in his own work, and, in fact, his use of these ideas may be all the more meaningful for his dislike of their creator. Furthermore, as Bloom tells us, "No poet, I amend that to no strong poet, can choose his precursor, any more than any person can choose his father" (12). Clemens was helpless in the choice of his descent as a popular writer from Poe, but he could and did exercise volition in the charting of his course away from his precursor once his popular success had given him the option to pursue a more serious literary purpose in his own writing. This is not to imply that Clemens only regarded Poe as a popular writer. The seriousness with which Clemens takes Poe's themes while, as Bloom would have it, misreading them, or modifying them according to his own abilities and desires as a literary artist, are testament to his respect, if certainly not regard and affection, for Poe.

It is fairly apparent that Clemens knew Poe very early in his literary career. David Sloane points out that "Dickens and Thackeray, Paine and Poe were available to him, cited frequently in the journals for which he set type" (61) during his late teens while pursuing his first occupation as a typesetter during the early 1850s. Delancey Ferguson informs us that in 1855, Clemens was regarded as a reader by his friends, who "mentioned Dickens and Poe as two of the authors whose books they had seen him carry about" (45). Ferguson further notes "the echoes of `The Gold Bug' which fill Tom [Sawyer]'s treasure hunt" (26); Walter Blair concurs: "From his reading of Poe in Keokuk days [c. 1855] or possibly from a later reading, the author here recalled--and burlesqued--the elaborate procedure used in 'The Gold Bug' to find buried treasure" (61).

Other critics, notably Jack Scherting and William M. Gibson, have noticed a source for "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" in Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," and Scherting also sees "William Wilson" as a source for some of the ingredients of Pudd'nhead Wilson (Gibson 90; Scherting 18). Walter Blair thinks that Clemens may have had Poe's "Four Beasts In One; or the Homocameleopard," in mind when writing the "Royal Nonesuch" scene in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (319). Edward Wagenknecht also notes that Clemens speaks of "The Bells" in A Tramp Abroad (34).

Clemens wrote "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" for presentation at one of the bi-weekly meetings of The Monday Evening Club, a loosely organized group of Hartford intellectuals and writers that numbered among its members Joseph Twichell, Calvin Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, Horace Bushnell, and James Hammond Trumbull, on January 24, 1878. The story, along with the roughly contemporary "The Curious Republic of Gondour," represents a turn in the direction of serious literature for Clemens. William Dean Howells, whom Justin Kaplan notes as being "among the first to recognize his friend's growing seriousness of mind" (193), published the piece in the June 1876 Atlantic, giving it pride of place in the issue and exposing the general reading public to a "new" Mark Twain, one who was more and more becoming a moralist in addition to being a humorist, a transition which dismayed some of his readers.

The public, including the Atlantic public, still expected Mark Twain to be a funny man only and were puzzled and dissatisfied when, as he did in this piece, he turned moralist, examined community values, and, exploring the dark side of his moon, touched on his growing sense of divisiveness. (Kaplan 194)

That Clemens appreciated the seriousness of this literary outing is apparent from the care he lavished on the manuscript. As he told Howells,

. . . although it is only 70 pages MS (less than two days work, counting by bulk,) I have spent three more days trimming, altering and working at it. I shall put in one more day's polishing on it, & then read it before our Club .... I think it will bring out considerable discussion .... (119)

"The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" inaugurates Samuel Clemens's greatest, most sustained and productive period, a search of literary triumphs which would include The Prince and the Pauper, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lift on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Pudd'nhead Wilson. One of the predominent traits shared by these Clemens masterpieces is the exploration of the double, in addition to the often scathing indictment of conventional morality: Huck and Jim; Tom Canty and Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales; the young Sam Clemens as cub-pilot and the older Sam as shrewd observer of post-reconstruction Southern decadence; Hank Morgan and King Arthur; and Chambers and Tom Driscoll. All of these pairs of characters can be used to explore the duality of mind which Samuel Clemens was sure existed, as he perceived this in his own thinking, and certainly in his own doppelganger and representative of his darker side, Mark Twain. The "Carnival of Crime" is the very beginning of this exploration, and it also serves as a battle-ground between Samuel Clemens and Edgar Allan Poe the precursor.

The double as a literary device is hardly new with either Clemens or Poe. John Herdman summarizes,

The double is a central romantic image. Its heyday corresponds approximately to the span of the nineteenth century, but its immediate literary roots are in late eighteenth-century Romanticism. (x)

Its concern, as Herdman further avers, is "with moral conflict, with conflict in the human will, with the dialectic of spiritual pride, and especially with the problem of evil and the issue of free will" (3-4). The double, then, as a literary tradition is well-suited to the kind of examination of the human psyche to which Poe and Clemens subject their characters. One of the contrasts, however, which the "Carnival of Crime" points out, is the difference between Poe's shadowy romantic doubles and Clemens's attempts to bring them out into the broad daylight of realistic writing. William Wilson's double, for example, is always in some form of seclusion or hiding place, a small chamber, or closet, while Mark Twain's Conscience appears in the well-lit confines of his library, and further appears only because he feels himself summoned by an off-the-cuff remark which Twain makes. Twain asks his Conscience why he was never visible before, and Conscience answers, "Because you never asked to see me before; that is, you never asked in the right spirit and the proper form before" (861). This conjures a thoroughly realistic and anti-romantic sense of volition on the part of the narrator. Though the idea of right spirit and proper form has echoes of incantations and magic spells, it is really only a simple matter of Twain's being in a "blithe, almost jocund" (644) mood, and musing to himself in happiness, "If my most pitiless enemy could appear before me at this moment, I would freely right any wrong I may have done him" (645).

Three commentators have noticed the presence of "William Wilson" in the "Carnival of Crime." Edward Wagenknecht makes reference to "The Mind of Mark Twain," an unpublished M.A. thesis written at the University of Texas in 1924 by Henry A. Pochmann, calling it "an important pioneering study of Mark Twain's readings" (255), which "finds suggestions of both `The Raven' and `William Watson' [sic] in `The Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut' [sic]" (34). Kenneth S. Lynn notes that" `Carnival' markedly resembles Poe's `William Wilson .... (203). Daniel Hoffman writes, much more recently,

In Poe's own country the only thing like "William Wilson" is by that other demon-haunted genius, Mark Twain. But where Poe's tale is taut with demonic intensity, there is a wonderful hilarity in "The Facts Concerning A [sic] Recent Carnival of Crime In Connecticut," in which Mark Twain, tortured by his Calvinist conscience, outwits his tormentor--and murders him. Then he is free to slay enemies, cheat widows, and freely indulge that wayward, mischief-loving self whose life had been a perpetual pang of suffering thanks to Conscience. (213)

There are more than suggestions of"William Wilson" in "Carnival of Crime," though "The Raven" appears in what may be called a suggestion, which will be discussed later. Further, the "hilarity" with which Clemens indulges his readers is a way of making the subject his own, as is his making of the Conscience what Hoffman calls "Calvinist," though, in fact, "Calvinist" may be a term too loosely applied to this picture of Conscience. The Conscience does not seem to exist as an ethical or religious prod in the life of Mark Twain, only as a prod that is, and one which seems to do its duty based on the fact that that is what consciences do, with no sense of reason or higher purpose. Mark Twain asks, "Do you do it with the honest intention to improve a man?" to which Conscience replies, "We do it simply because it is `business.' It is our trade. The purpose of it is to improve the man, but we are merely disinterested agents" (652-53).

Herdman cites as one of "two obsessive themes which repeatedly elicit images of duality in Poe's fiction... that of the avenging conscience" (89). William Wilson, in his double, seems to have the perfect image of the avenging conscience. It is, as was mentioned earlier, kept locked away in a closet until needed, or until Wilson is perpetrating his trademark acts of "unparalled infamy" (337). The narrator has no control over when and where the conscience will appear. The double's name is the same as the narrator's, a nom de plume adopted in order to shield his true identity, though the narrator points out that "William Wilson" is not really the double's name either; but in either case, their real names are shared in common, and they even share the same birthdate, which is January 19th, Poe's own.

Herdman says, "Certainly the protagonist with whom Poe himself is associated by the clearest autobiographical signposts is William Wilson" (89). In this context, what better story could Samuel Clemens borrow from and refashion in his own image? A look at some of the particulars reveals how greatly indebted Clemens is to Poe.

Poe's narrator's double is an almost exact replica of himself, and his

feeling of vexation . . . grew stronger with every circumstance tending to show resemblance, moral or physical, between my rival and myself.... His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay in both words and in actions; and most admirably did he play his part .... Even my voice did not escape him [though the double is not able to speak above a whisper]. My louder tones, were, of course, unattempted, but then the key, it was identical: and his singular whisper, it grew the very echo of my own. (344)

The double and his imitations are only noticeable to the narrator, and it assumes a "disgusting air of patronage" (345) over him, giving him often unwanted advice. The double has the knack of appearing wherever the narrator's wanderings take him, from school to school, Dr. Bransby's to Eton to Oxford. The double also has the power to make the narrator grow "perfectly sober in an instant" (348).

The protagonist of"The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" is Mark Twain. Twain's double is an exaggeration and caricature of himself, and one that shares habits, similarities in words and actions, and even a certain infirmity of voice. It is also "about forty years old" (645), Clemens's age in January 1876. Twain describes his double as "a far-fetched, dim suggestion of a burlesque upon me, a caricature of me in little" (845). The creature's actions seem to Twain like an "exaggeration of conduct which [he himself] had sometimes been guilty of in my intercourse with familiar friends" (645). He has "some incomprehensible sense of being legally and legitimately under his authority" (845). Its language is "hardly an exaggeration of some that [he had] uttered in [his] day, and... was delivered in a tone of voice and with an exasperating drawl that had the seeming of a deliberate travesty of [his] style" (646). When Twain tells it to mind its manners, it responds with its own air of patronage, remonstrating with him to not "put on too many airs with your betters" (646). While this double does not demonstrate its ability to appear wherever the narrator goes, it is clear that it knows everything the narrator has done and has the ability to remind him of it at will.

While the greatest similarities between doubles occur between "William Wilson" and the "Carnival of Crime," it should also be noted that Twain's Conscience is a "shrivelled, shabby dwarf... not more than two feet high .... The fox-like cunning in the face and the sharp little eyes, and also alertness and malice" (645). This malicious and vengeful dwarf echoes the dwarf called Hop-Frog in the Poe story of the same name. It is a deformed dwarf also, with an "inability to walk as other men do" (900). He is a triple blessing to the king, as he is a dwarf, a cripple, and a fool; but he ultimately takes an evil and grotesque revenge on those who have used him solely for entertainment. When his vengeance is complete, the dwarf escapes upward and out through a skylight high in the ceiling of the castle. Twain's Conscience is able to escape, temporarily, at least, by scampering upward onto a bookshelf, where he is able to taunt the narrator from a safe vantage point, just as Hop-Frog can taunt the king's subjects after immolating the King and his counselors. Immolation may be another borrowed idea, as Twain discards the mutilated body of his Conscience into the fire after killing it, and he more than once refers to throwing the Conscience onto the ash-heap.

The Conscience's perch upon the bookshelf is also reminiscent of the Raven's perch upon a bust of Pallas, the goddess of learning. The bookshelf is as representative of learning in Clemens's world of realism as a bust of Pallas would be to the romantic world of Poe and his reliance on classical allusion. Unlike Poe's narrator, Clemens's interlocutor asks for and receives answers which are news to him, and does not pose questions designed to form around and elicit a mechanical response, though it could be argued that Twain's answers are coming from within himself through his double as personified conscience.

Clemens allows Mark Twain to defeat his Conscience, as Poe does not allow William Wilson to defeat his. A conscience, to Clemens, does not have any value, though it seems to have a great deal of value to Poe. To Poe, the conscience is the just recompense for humans possessing the ability, even the instinct, for the perverse. At the conclusion of "William Wilson," Poe's conscience is murdered by Wilson. But the tables are turned, and the murderer becomes the dead, the one "dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope" (357). The Conscience no longer speaks in a whisper, but in clear imitation of Wilson's voice, and it is a bleeding and battered Wilson whom he sees in the mirror which magically appears.

Clemens thought that a conscience was something imposed on human beings from without, by society and its representatives. Mark Twain is the slave of conscience only until he is able to, by trickery and brute strength, beat his conscience and gain his freedom. In the "Carnival of Crime," the result of being without a conscience is a riot of Poe's perversity, but the presentation in the story, a burlesque, makes of it a conclusion which is satiric and cannot be taken seriously. One expression stands out, however: "Nothing in all the world could persuade me to have a conscience again" (660), as he also could be saying, "Nothing in the world could persuade me to have a precursor again." Twain kills his conscience and emerges into a world of freedom from socially imposed restrictions and from all his various Aunts. Their identity becomes clearer in the fiction which follows, and the protagonists almost always profit from taking their own course.

Poe represented for Clemens the older, more established romantic forms, where every crime has its recompense, and where a character could be referred to as having sinned unforgivably. Clemens engineers the successful killing of his conscience in order to establish his own identity as a writer and a moralist who could imbue his stories and characters with a sense of moral purpose at odds with the conventional beliefs in America established by Poe and the other followers of European moral tradition.

Works Cited

Baetzhold, Howard G. Mark Twain and John Bull. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1970.

Blair, Walter. Mark Twain and Huck Finn. Berkeley: U of California P, 1960.

Bloom, Harold. A Map of Misreading. New York: Oxford UP, 1975.

Brashear, Minnie. Mark Twain: Son of Missouri. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1934.

Clemens, Samuel L. "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime In Connecticut," Mark Twain: Tales, Sketches, Speeches and Essays, 1852-1890. New York: The Library of America, 1992.

Clemens, Samuel L., and William Dean Howells. Mark Twain-Howells Letters: The Correspondence of Samuel L. Clemens and William Dean Howells, 1872-1910. Frederick Anderson, William M. Gibson, Henry Nash Smith, eds. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1960.

Ferguson, Delancey. Mark Twain: Man and Legend. New York: Russell and Russell, 1965.

Gibson, William M. The Art of Mark Twain. New York: Oxford UP, 1976.

Gillman, Susan. Dark Twins: Imposture and Identity in Mark Twain's America. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989.

Gribben, Alan. Mark Twain's Library: A Reconstruction. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980.

Herdman, John. The Double in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. New York: St. Martin's, 1991.

Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. New York: Paragon House, 1972.

Kaplan, Justin. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966.

Lynn, Kenneth S. Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor. Boston: Little Brown, 1959.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "William Wilson," "Hop-Frog," "The Raven," Poetry and Tales. New York: The Library of America, 1984.

Scherting, Jack. "Poe>'s `The Cask of Amontillado': A Source For Twain's `The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.'" Mark Twain Journal. XVI (Summer 1972), 18-19.

Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never Ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.

Sloane, David E. E. Mark Twain as a Literary Comedian. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1979.

Steinbrink, Jeffrey. Getting to Be Mark Twain. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991.

Tenney, Thomas A. Mark Twain: A Reference Guide. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1977.