The Ordeal of Mark Twain Author:Van Wyck Books It was just 50 years ago, in 1920 that Van Wyck Brooks, one of the towering figures in American letters, first published this astonishing indictment of Mark Twain as a failed artist in his important and controversial work The Ordeal of Mark Twain. This remains one of the best scholarly probings we have of the likely sources and causes of some o... more »f the peculiar inadequacies in Mark Twain's art...« less