Imposture and Identity in Mark Twain's America
Gillman shows that laws regulating race classification, paternity, and rape cases underwrite Twain's critical exploration of racial and sexual difference in the writings of the 1890s and after, most strikingly in the little-known manuscripts that Gillman calls the "tales of transvestism." The "pseudoscience" of spiritualism and the "science" of psychology provide the cultural vocabularies essential to Twain's fantasy and science fiction writings of his last two decades. Twain stands forth finally as a representative man, not only a child of his culture, but also as one implicated in a continuing American anxiety about freedom, race, and identity.
1. Introduction: Mark Twain in Context
2. Imposture and the "Littery Man"
3. Racial Identity in Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins
4. Tales of Sexual Identity: Female Fathers and Male Impersonators
5. The Dream Writings and the Cosmic Consciousness
6. Dress Reform and Copyright