An outstanding American writer Mark Twain wrote in his recollections that even when he was a child he was impressed by a heroic tragedy of life of Joan of Arc, but he decided to write a novel about her only in the end of his literature career. While studying documents about Joan's life and her trial, he said: "This will be a serious book; it means more for me than anything else I have ever initiated." In one of his letters the writer said that never before had he worked so hard.
