I don't remember if I had posted these pictures on that original thread but I think they are certainly worthy of being shown again.

From the preface of "Mark Right"....



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OK, so some don't appreciate Nash's style or interpretation of Negro dialect. However, he wrote about real people, real places, real guns, real dogs, and backed it up with real shooting, both at competition clay targets, pigeons, and waterfowl. Bird shooting is a lesser accomplishment, so I didn't include it. In addition, Nash left his artifacts behind, for us to enjoy. The Award Gun, Bo Whoop, and maybe others. He was also a legendery field trial judge who wrote of great field trial champions. His recollection of American waterfowling before the turn of the twentieth century is about the only such recollection written about by someone who was alive during our lifetimes. There is a boxed edition of the reprints alluded to in this thread. I found a set a while ago and find it very interesting. Thanks to a member of one of our collecting groups, we now know the true identity of "Doc", the hunting partner of Marse Henry and Nash. To add another anecdote, the last unopened case of Super-X Lubaloy 3", 1 3/8 ounce #4s sent to "Marse Henry" by John Olin, the month that Nash lost the big gun, has been added to a Fox collection. Nash has my vote for the most interesting writer of his time.

Bill, I greatly enjoy his writing, and am quite familiar with the dialect he uses. I just overall enjoy Rutledge's writings more. Some of Nash's stories I actually like better, but some of his writing isn't as interesting, while there isn't anything of Rutledges I have read that I didn't enjoy. Any of Nash's stories involving the squire and such I find highly enjoyable. For some reason, probably the Avatar he uses on this forum, there is a duck hunting story in Mark Right on a lake in the dead of winter that I can't help but shake the image of Destry from my mind when reading it.

My copy of Mark Right has a very old newspaper clipping tapped to the inside page as either a review or an advertisement for the book.

Nash's writing comes from his own time and his own culture. It's true that some of it might be less than acceptable by today's standards, but I'd guess there are written works out there from many eras which, for a variety of reasons, seem unacceptable or a little strange when viewed under today's microscope.

Definitely, some people want to edit Huck Fin because of the language present in the book.