Mark Twain

Gary Scott Smith taught at Grove City College from 1978 to 2017 where he chaired the History Department and coordinated the Humanities Core. He received Grove City's inaugural Professor of the Year award in 2000, and the next year he was named Pennsylvania Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. He is the author or editor of seventeen books.

• Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Persons and Works 1: Introduction 2: 1835-1860: Life Along and On the Mississippi 3: The 1860s: Journalism, a Pilgrimage, and Courtship 4: The 1870s: Hartford as a Religious Haven 5: The 1880s: In Hartford as In Heaven 6: The 1890s: A Troubled Time 7: The 1900s: Trying to Make Sense of Life 8: Conclusion Selected Bibliography

In his masterful analysis of Twain's life and thought, Smith examines Twain's changing theological views as well his attitudes toward the moral corruption and indifference of his day. More broadly, Smith's insightful study offers a window into the nature and role of Protestantism in Gilded Age American culture and its complex relationship with economic exploitation, imperialism, political greed, poverty, and racism...Crisply written and richly documented, Smith's engaging biography makes an outstanding contribution to American religious history.