M. Twain is universally considered as a humorous writer and sometimes even a light one. Maybe he was not completely understood, especially during his life, when his main novels were too often considered suitable mainly for boys, or when the same masterpieces were banned from libraries as "trash suitable only for the slums" an account of the use of colloquial speech and of local colour which sounded offensive to some people. He was even accused of racism because in his works he depicted language in common use in the XIX century.

But only who had only a superficial knowledge of his work could consider him like that.

As a matter of fact, under the surface of humorous, Twain was a sharp chronicler of the hypocrisies, vanities and shameful acts of mankind. His humour was a moralistic one and was dictated by his Protestant faith. Determinism and uneasiness typical of the end of century combined with a deep nostalgic vein – as a feature of his own character – were constantly present in any of his works and guided him in his attack against hypocrisies and useless sufferance, without avoiding politics and religion. For that, in his later years, despite of being the most famous writer in the USA, he himself renounced to publish thousands of his writings. During his life some of his sharpest works were rejected by publishers and could be printed only after his death, or were published anonymously. We are referring to 1601: Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors (a scatological little book published anonymous in 1880 and only in 1906 Twain acknowledged his literary paternity); The War Prayer, an anti-war article written during the Philippine-American war whose publication was rejected and remained unpublished until 1923, that is to say thirteen years after Twain’s death: he was bitterly right when he told his friend D. Beard <<I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.>>.

He was deeply against violence, from vivisection to war. About vivisection he said: <<I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race of doesn’t. (…) The pain which inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.>>

From 1901 to 1910, he was vice president of the American Anti-Imperialistic League, as association which opposed the annexation of the Philippines by the USA. In response to the Moro Crater Massacre (1), he wrote Incident in the Philippines, which was published only in 1924, fourteen years after his death. Many of his "forgotten" writings on anti-imperialism appeared for the first time in book form in 1992. But they were not all yet.

His same family decided not to publish some of his works, like Letters from the Earth, and The Mysterious Stranger, for example, because they knew they were especially irreverent towards conventional religion.

Surely not many could grasp his double identity, maybe already prophesied by the choice of the word "twain" – which means "two" – as his pen-name. Double because he was witty, amusing and tender and, at the same time, sharp, disrespectful and direct. Maybe basically honest and for that not completely understood and accepted by many. He loved progress and technology, but deeply in a romantic love with the legends, traditions and habits of the people of "the Big River" who never betrayed.

edited by Isabella Marinaro

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(1) The Moro Crater Massacre was a slaughter in which 600.000 Moros were killed by the USA troops. The Moros are Muslim inhabitants of the Philippines.

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