{{short description|Unfinished novel by Mark Twain}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox book | italic title = | name = Hellfire Hotchkiss | exclude_cover = yes | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | author = [[Mark Twain]] | audio_read_by = | title_working = | translator = | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = USA | language = English | series = | release_number = | subject = | genre = | set_in = | published = {{start date|df=yes|1967}} (posthumously) | publisher = | publisher2 = | pub_date = | english_pub_date = | media_type = | pages = | awards = | isbn = | isbn_note = | oclc = | dewey = | congress = | preceded_by = | followed_by = | native_wikisource = | wikisource = | notes = | website = }}
'''''Hellfire Hotchkiss''''' is an [[unfinished creative work|unfinished]] [[novel]] by [[Mark Twain]]. Twain completed three chapters of the novel in 1897, mostly while he was residing in [[Weggis]], [[Switzerland]].<ref name=Rogers1967>{{cite book|last=Twain|first=Mark|title=Mark Twain's Satires and Burlesques|year=1967|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley, California|isbn=0-520-01081-7|author2=Franklin R. Rogers|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/marktwainssatire0000twai_q8d2}}</ref> These remained unpublished until 1967 when they were incorporated into ''Mark Twain's Satires and Burlesques''.<ref name=Cooley2001>{{cite book|last=Cooley|first=John|title=How Nancy Jackson Married Kate Wilson|year=2001|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|location=Lincoln|isbn=0-8032-9442-5|pages=43–44}}</ref> As a result the book is not in the [[public domain]].
The novel is notable for the reversed [[gender role]]s of its two main characters.<ref name=Morris2005>{{cite journal|last=Morris|first=Linda A.|title=The Eloquent Silence in "Hellfire Hotchkiss"|journal=The Mark Twain Annual|date=September 2005|volume=3|issue=1|pages=43–51|doi=10.1111/j.1756-2597.2005.tb00028.x}}</ref><ref name=Gillman1989>{{cite book|last=Gillman|first=Susan|title=Dark Twins: Imposture and Identity in Mark Twain's America|year=1989|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|isbn=0-226-29387-4|pages=109–110}}</ref> The heroine, Rachel "Hellfire" Hotchkiss, is portrayed as a resourceful but temperamental [[tomboy]]. Oscar "Thug" Carpenter, in contrast, is portrayed as a sensitive, effeminate, and unstable young man. In one section of the book, a villager remarks, "Pudd'nhead Wilson says Hellfire Hotchkiss is the only genuwyne male man in this town and Thug Carpenter's the only genuwyne female girl, if you leave out sex and just consider the business facts."
According to some sources, the character of Oscar Carpenter was partially based on Twain's brother Orion Clemens, who was notoriously indecisive,<ref name=Gillman1989/><ref name=LeMaster1993>{{cite book|last=LeMaster|first=J.R.|title=The Mark Twain Encyclopedia|year=1993|publisher=Garland|location=New York|isbn=0-8240-7212-X|pages=355}}</ref> while Rachel Hotchkiss may have been based on Twain's friend Lillie Hitchcock.<ref name=Cooley2001/><ref name=LeMaster1993/>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Twain}}
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[[Category:Novels by Mark Twain]] [[Category:Unfinished novels]] [[Category:Novels published posthumously]] [[Category:1967 American novels]] [[Category:1967 English-language novels]]