<p>Source: Bibliography in Francis Martin, J R ., “To Ignore Is to Deny: E. W. Kemble’s Racial Caricature as Popular Art”</p>
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Revision as of 03:05, 22 May 2026
Relevant Literature
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Gannon, Susan R., and Clark, Beverly Lyon. "'200 Rattling Pictures': True Williams and the Imagetext of the First American Edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". 2007.
Mark TwainThe Adventures of Tom Sawyerbook illustrations
No abstract available.
Wonham, Henry B., and Wonham, Henry B.. "'I Want a Real Coon': Twain and Ethnic Caricature". 2004.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnCaricatures and cartoonsKemble, Edward W.Mark Twainbook illustrations
No abstract available
Newell, Kate. 'You don't know about me without you have read a book': Authenticity in Adaptations of 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Literature/Film Quarterly. 2013.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnKemble, Edward W.Mark Twainbook illustrations
No abstract available
Holt, Elvin. A Coon Alphabet and the Comic Mask of Racial Prejudice. Studies in American Humor. 1986.
Kemble, Edward W.illustrations
No abstract available
Sonstegard, Adam. Artistic liberty and slave imagery: ‘Mark Twain's illustrator,' E. W. Kemble, turns to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Nineteenth-Century Literature.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnKemble, Edward W.Mark Twainbook illustrations
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Leonard, James S. et al.. Author-ity and textuality: current views of collaborative writing. 1994.
AuthorshipCollaboration
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Pereira, Nilce M.. Book illustration as (intersemiotic) translation: pictures translating words. Meta. 2008.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnMark Twainbook illustrations
No abstract available
Kinghorn, Norton D.. E. W. Kemble's Misplaced Modifier: A Note on the Illustrations for 'Huckleberry Finn'. Mark Twain Journal.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnKemble, Edward W.Mark Twainbook illustrations
No abstract available
Railton, Stephen. "Illustrating _Pudd'nhead_".
Kemble, Edward W.Pudd'nhead Wilsonabstract examplenotes example
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Railton, Stephen. "Illustrating Huckleberry Finn: E. W. Kemble". Illustrating Huck Homepage.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnKemble, Edward W.
No abstract available
Mark Twain in His Times Project. Accessed 19 February 2026.
unknown. "Illustrating Pudd'nhead".
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unknown. "Illustrating Pudd'nhead".
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Dumas, Frédéric. Illustration and Imagination: Mark Twain’s Roughing It and John Gast’s American Progress. ILCEA [Revue de l’Institut des langues et cultures d'Europe, Amérique, Afrique, Asie et Australie]. 2021.
Mark TwainRoughing Itbook illustrations
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Teutsch, Matthew. "Illustrations in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”". Interminable Rambling.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnKemble, Edward W.
No abstract available
Barclay, Donald A.. Interpreted Well Enough: Two Illustrators' Visions of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Horn Book Magazine. 1992.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnKemble, Edward W.Mark Twainbook illustrations
No abstract available
Briden, Earl F.. Kemble's 'Specialty' and the Pictorial Countertext of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain Journal. 1988.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnKemble, Edward W.Mark Twainbook illustrations
No abstract available
Inge, M. Thomas et al.. "Mark Twain and Dan Beard's Collaborative Connecticut Yankee". 1994.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtMark Twainbook illustrations
No abstract available
David, Beverly R.. Mark Twain and his illustrators. 1986.
book illustrations
No abstract available
David, Beverly R.. Mark Twain and his illustrators. 2001.
book illustrations
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David, Beverly R.. Mark Twain and the Legends for "Huckleberry Finn". American Literary Realism.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnKemble, Edward W.Mark Twainbook illustrations
<strong>Edward Windsor Kemble, Illustrator</strong>
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<strong>Edward Windsor Kemble</strong> (b. 1861 - d. 1933) <br>was born in Sacramento, California, the son of Edward Cleveland Kemble who founded the <em>San Francisco Alta California</em>. His first attempts at drawing were those of Indians drawn when he was about eleven years old and traveling with his father throughout the West. In the winter of 1880-1881 he attended class in New York at the Art Students' League. After that brief stint, Kemble became largely self-taught and obtained a job as a cartoonist at New York's <em>Daily Graphic</em>. When <em>Life </em>magazine was founded in 1883 he became a contributor to that publication. When Clemens saw some of his Negro drawings in <em>Life</em> magazine, he recruited him to illustrate the first edition of <em>Huckleberry Finn</em>. After the success of <em>Huckleberry Finn</em>, <em>Century</em> magazine made him an offer for all of his work outside of book publications. He remained with <em>Century</em> until 1891. Kemble died in 1933 with a lengthy list of book illustration work to his credit.
In a letter from Kemble to Frank Bliss dated May 16, 1898, Kemble told Bliss he would be happy to join the "goodly company" of artists and provide illustrations for "a volume of Mark Twain." Bliss had also awarded Kemble the illustrating assignment for the 1899 edition of <em>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</em>. For <em>Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins</em>, Kemble provided six new full-page pictures to illustrate the <em>Pudd'nhead Wilson</em> chapters of the book.
One of Kemble's illustrations titled "Buckstone Training with the Rum Party" was hand-colored and used as the frontispiece for the 1901 <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/UniformEds/UniformEdsCh4-f.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Riverdale Edition</a>.
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Kemble's previous style of depicting black people as unattractive caricatures was unchanged throughout <em>Pudd'nhead Wilson</em>. His drawings of the central character Roxy, who was only 1/16 black, depict a less attractive woman than the illustrations of her by <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Roxy.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Louis Loeb which had appeared in the </a><em><a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Roxy.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Century Magazine</a></em> serialization. Kemble's image would be the one presented to the greatest number of American readers for years to come and one illustration in particular became the source of scholarly misidentification and misinterpretation.
The 1899 edition of <em>Pudd'nhead Wilson</em> features two illustrations of Roxy, both in the company of blacks. In 1901 American Publishing Company authorized the <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/UniformEds/UniformEdsCh4-e.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Underwood Edition</a> which contained fewer illustrations. Only one illustration of Roxy was used and it was featured prominently as a frontispiece. The decision to present the below illustration as the first one a reader would see was repeated by Harper and Brothers in subsequent uniform editions. It has been a source of misunderstanding for critics who were not adept at reading the picture and who never had an opportunity to see Kemble's other illustration of Roxy.One of the most prominent Mark Twain scholars to criticize Kemble for misinterpretating Mark Twain's work was Leslie Fiedler. In Fiedler's review titled "As Free as Any Cretur..." published in <em>The New Republic</em> in August 1955 he wrote that the image of Roxy that Twain created was "a portrait so complex and unforeseen that the baffled illustrator for the authorized standard edition chose to ignore it completely, drawing in the place of a 'majestic...rosy...comely' Roxana--a gross and comic Aunt Jemima."
In 1987 Martha Banta followed Fiedler's lead in her work <em>Imaging American Women: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History </em>writing:
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Kemble did not draw the Roxy Mark Twain portrays. He set down the accepted fictions, "the orthodox opinions," governing turn-of-the-century identification of inferior racial types. A stroke of Kemble's pen wipes out the verbal irony by which Mark Twain set up cross-currents among what Roxy looks like, her bottom-nature, and the racial tag placed upon her by society (Banta, p. 182).
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One of the most cogent discussions of the Kemble misinterpretations is by Werner Sollors in his essay "Was Roxy Black?" published in <em>Mixed Race Literature</em> (2002), edited by Jonathan Brennan. Sollors suggests that Kemble may have "hidden" Roxy in "Harvesting Among the Kitchens" as a conscious way of honoring Mark Twain's sentence "From Roxy's manner of speech, a stranger would have expected her to be black, but she was not" (Brennan, p. 82). As a result of publishing decisions to cut illustrations, a number of readers have been guilty of their own hasty stereotyping when glancing at the Kemble frontispiece. No evidence has been found that Mark Twain commented on the usage of "Roxy Harvesting Among the Kitchens" as a frontispiece for the Underwood or subsequent Harper editions. The ensuing controversy the illustration caused is one that he would likely have enjoyed.
Further discussion of Kemble's illustrations is available online at the University of Virginia website in an article titled "<a href="http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/wilson/pwillshp.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Illustrating Pudd'nhead</a>."
Wonham, Henry B.. Playing the races: ethnic caricature and American literary realism. 2004.
Adventures of Huckleberry FinnCaricatures and cartoonsKemble, Edward W.Mark Twainbook illustrations
No abstract available
Introduction: the age of caricature, the age of realism -- William Dean Howells and the touch of exaggeration which typifies -- "I want a real coon": Twain and ethnic caricature -- A Jamesian art to be cultivated -- Edith Wharton's flamboyant copy -- The "curious realism" of Charles Chesnutt
David, Berverly R. et al.. "Reading the illustrations in Huckleberry Finn". 1996.
Kemble, Edward W.
No abstract available
Scholarly material added to the back of the novel; separate pagination from the main text
Anderson, Douglas. Reading the Pictures of Huckleberry Finn. Arizona Quarterly. 1986.