Bistro Bookers
Join us on Tuesday, January 21, 2025 @ 4:00 PM.
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Book Title: The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express: 10 Stories and over a Century of Sketches
Author: Bomas J. Reigstad
Discussed by: Author Thomas J. Reigstad
*** The author will be selling and autographing his book: hardcover $25, softcover $20. Cash and check accepted.
Book Summary: Coming to Buffalo as a young man with a background as an itinerant printer’s apprentice, newspaper reporter and popular lecturer Mark Twain began his brief but impactful tenure at the Buffalo Express in 1869. One of his first decisions as managing editor was to accompany each of his Saturday feature stories with an illustration. But the sketches didn’t stop there. For more than a century, illustrators have kept coming back to Twain’s original Express stories to add their own drawings to the humorist’s legacy.
The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express collects ten feature stories published by Twain in the Buffalo Express during his year-long tenure at the publication, accompanied by illustrations drawn by six artists over a span of nearly 115 years alongside insightful analysis from author and Twain scholar Thomas J. Reigstad. There is the drawing by Twain himself, created in 1870; originals by Express staff artist John Harrison Mills in the fall of 1869; and those featured alongside his Express stories by his favorite contemporary illustrator, True Williams, who would be the principal illustrator of Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Sketches New and Old. This book also includes 11 humorous illustrations created by Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Tom Toles for a 1978 Buffalo Courier-Express Sunday Magazine series reprinted here for the first time, as well as a cartoon drawn in 1983 for the Mark Twain Journal by Bill Watterson, the cartoonist and author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Finally, this volume contains two 21st-century caricatures of Twain, one as he looked in his early 30s in Buffalo and a second of him decades later as a literary lion, drawn by cartoonist Adam Zyglis—another Pulitzer Prize–winner—for The Buffalo News.
Ranging from his first impression of Niagara Falls to the deteriorating condition of a cemetery in his Buffalo neighborhood to more satirical statements on the state of American journalism, Twain’s Buffalo Express stories from 1869 and 1870 stand the test of time. But their entertainment value is vastly increased when coupled with visual interpretations provided by talented illustrators (including Twain himself) of yesterday and today.
Date: Tuesday, January 21, 2025 @ 4:00 PM
Venue:
Audubon Senior Center
370 John James Audubon Parkway
Amherst NY 14228
You MUST reserve your seat by 3:00 PM on Friday, January 17, 2025 for this event by calling 716-636-3051 and providing your name and phone number. If you call to reserve for more than one person, you must provide each person’s name and phone number.
*Suggested donation of $2 per person is greatly appreciated. Your donation helps Bistro Bookers to continue to hold these reviews and donate back to our community literacy programs. Your donation allows us to purchase the reviewers book if necessary and give them a gift for their time.*
** Masks are encouraged at this time please make sure to bring yours just in case.
Bistro Bookers is taking a break in December. We wish happy and safe holidays to you and yours!