This historical novel purportedly written by Joan's longtime friend -- Sieur Louis de Conte -- discloses Twain's unrestrained admiration for the French heroine's nobility of character.

A fictional biography told as if written by Saint Joan's page and secretary. He relates Joan's brief life and stormy career with understanding and admiration that grew after her death.

A serious, impassioned, meticulously researched story about a compelling heroine, the Maid of Orleans, Twain viewed the work both as a bid to be accepted as a serious writer and as a gift of love to his favorite daughter, Susy, who would die tragically three months after Joan of Arc was published. Although set in 15th century Europe, Joan of Arc is a key text for anyone who would understand the ambivalence that greeted the New Women in turn-of-the-century America. Twain's novel illuminates some of the major currents, and contradictions, of turn-of-the-century life and thought.

Mark Twain's own favorite among his works, the product of a life-long obsession with the history of the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc was a failure in terms of sales and has remained obscure and largely out of print for more than a century since its publication. It is, in reality, a much more lively book than its reputation would indicate, and no reader can claim to understand Twain's canon without having read this novel. The initial offering in the Litrix Library series (see also www.litrix.com).

De Conte is a fictionalized version of Joan of Arc's page Louis de Contes, and provides narrative unity to the story. He is presented as an individual who was with Joan during the three major phases of her life - as a youth in Domremy, as the commander of Charles' army on military campaign, and as a defendant at the trial in Rouen. The book is presented as a translation by Alden of de Conte's memoirs, written in his later years for the benefit of his descendants.