SOURCE: “Mark Twain's Utopia,” in Mark Twain Journal, Vol. XIX, No. 3, Winter, 1978-1979, pp. 1-2.

In the following essay, Ferguson critiques Mark Twain's utopian story “The Curious Republic of Gondour.”

“The Curious Republic of Gondour” was published anonymously in Atlantic Monthly for Oct. 1895. It was a time when Mark Twain was actively concerned with politics. He was not a party politician, though his sympathies were generally Republican. The 1876 Presidential campaign was the first in which he was deeply involved emotionally: he believed intensely in Hayes's commitment to clean government, and thought that Tilden's election would be a disaster.

Mark Twain's political thinking was in fact independent. He was firmly a republican, and a disbeliever in monarchy, and took satisfaction in the collapse of the thrones of Europe: “There never was a throne which did not represent a crime.” He was in some sense a democrat. He recognized and...