2. Attorney Darin H. Mangum has been practicing the
law for more than 15 years as managing member of
his private firm in Provo, Utah. In his free time,
Darin H. Mangum enjoys reading and claims
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark
Twain as one of his favorite books. Darin H.
Mangum was able to fulfill one of his life-long
dreams and visited Joan of Arc's birthplace in
Domrémy-la-Pucelle, France, last summer. Darin H.
Mangum believes Joan of Arc is such a role model
for women and personal revelation to everyone.

3. Mark Twain entertained a longstanding and
quite puzzling fascination with Joan of Arc,
whom he described as “by far the most
extraordinary person the human race has ever
produced.” In fact, he even wrote his last novel
about the woman. The book, Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc, was published in
1896 when the novelist was 61 years old. It
appeared in serial form in Harper’s Magazine
and was written as a memoir about the famed
lady of history by her fictionalized page (heavily
based on the woman’s real page, Louis de
Contes).

4. Mark Twain historians have long been baffled
by the author’s obsession with Joan of Arc. One
historian, the biographer Albert B. Paine, said
that the author claimed that his fascination
began when he was a young lad, but modern
historians disagree. Regardless, it’s apparent
that the author admired Joan of Arc for many
years as she appears in some of his earliest
essays; in fact, he even claimed that Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc was his best work.