Jim Regan - Site Reviews
"Mark Twain at Large: His Travels Here and Abroad" and "Churchill: The Evidence"
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First up is Mark Twain at Large: His Travels Here and Abroad. The legacy of an exhibition by the Bancroft Library in 1998, the site presents a selection from the 'paper trail' of Samuel Clemens' life, from shopping lists to manuscripts.
As the title suggests, this project concentrates on Twain's travels and their relation to his writing, but since said travels began when he was 17, and concluded nine days before his death, it also serves as a fairly thorough Web biography.
Divided by periods, (such as his time as a riverboat pilot, and his 'round the world "lecturing raid" at the age of 59) Twain at Large uses text to introduce and expand upon dozens of artifacts, which include photographs, letters and postcards, notebook entries and lectures. In addition to a general biographical outline and morsels of trivia (some of Twain's books were 'subscription publications,' sold door to door) there is also the requisite look behind the scenes.
Artifacts of this category include samples from unpublished works, manuscript drafts which were later disqualified, a glimpse at the creative process -- through such items as the earliest writings about a certain "jumping frog story" -- and a look at the very private side of the author, including notes Clemens made about his wife's funeral.
Moving from writer to politician, we next have Churchill: The Evidence, which -- though the choice of subject may be a matter of taste -- is undeniably a superior site in design and execution. (Twain at Large has some fairly unsuccessful text formatting when images are loaded - occasionally going so far as to place words behind the photos.)
In terms of origin and method, however, the sites are very similar. In this case, the project is the online proxy for an exhibition at the National Library of Scotland (and derived from the controversial 'Churchill Papers' - bought from the Churchill family for 12.5 million pounds). As with Twain at Large, Churchill is a collection of photographs, letters, bills, speeches, and other paper-based fragments of history.
Of course, there are documents more specific to his various careers here as well, such as a Boer government order for his arrest, (and varying accounts about his escape) political cartoons, posters and newspaper articles, official and personal wartime correspondences, and a report on the testing of Churchill's wine for potential poisoning.
Unlike Twain at Large, Churchill has very little text to accompany the images. Perhaps the work is aimed at an audience already well-versed in the major events of his life, but the rest of us will be left wishing for more details. Both sites are also likely to make modern archivists wish for earlier times. Between color photographs that fade before their subjects, writer's drafts that never escape the Hard Drive, e-mail, e-commerce, and e- whatever else can be e'ed, one wonders what will be left for the archives of figures alive today.
Mark Twain at Large: His Travels Here and Abroad can be found at http://library.berkeley.edu/BANC/Exhibits/MTP/. Churchill: The Evidence can be found at http://www.churchill.nls.ac.uk/
Jim Regan provides 'Today's Links' to the e-Monitor. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.