A few months ago, Joe Lemak from the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College asked me if I’d like to write something to promote my book for their web site.

Today, they’ve published that essay, along with some great visuals. The piece is called “Gears and God: What Powered Twain’s Speculative Fiction?”

I’d encourage folks to read it, and to browse some of the other material Elmira has published in the last year on the site. They do an excellent blend of notes on recent research, coverage of their “Trouble Begins a 8” lecture series, and notes on international Twain scholarship. They’ve really been knocking it out of the park.

The image on the left is one of Dan Beard’s illustrations from the original edition of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). The image on the right is from a Frank Reade, Jr. dime novel from a few years earlier. Both feature 19th-century guys in chain mail. To learn more, read the article at the Center for Mark Twain Studies.