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 25 November 2024.]
