John Wiley - A Companion to Mark Twain

This series offers comprehensive, newly written surveys of key periods and movements and certain major authors, in English literary culture and history. Extensive volumes provide new perspectives and positions on contexts and on canonical and post-canonical texts, orientating the beginning student in new fields of study and providing the experienced undergraduate and new graduate with current and new directions, as pioneered and developed by leading scholars in the field.

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EDITED BY

PETER MESSENT

LOUIS J. BUDD

This paperback edition first published 2015
2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization
2005 Peter Messent and Louis J. Budd
Chapter 17 2005 Shelley Fisher Fishkin
Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (hardback, 2005)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A companion to Mark Twain / edited by Peter Messent and Louis J. Budd.
p. cm.(Blackwell companions to literature and culture ; 37)
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-2379-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 978-1-119-04539-7 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-4051-2379-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1-119-04539-8 (paperback)
1. Twain, Mark, 18351910Criticism and interpretationHandbooks, manuals, etc.
I. Messent, Peter. II. Budd, Louis J. III. Series.
PS1338.C64 2005
818.409dc22
2005006594

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Mark Twain c. 1880, frontispiece photograph from A Tramp Abroad. Photo courtesy of University of Virginia Library, Special Collections.

To William, Alice, Ella and Leah, with love (PM)
To Exelee, our best reader-to-be (LB)

Lawrence I. Berkove is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and President-elect of the Mark Twain Circle of America. He has published widely in his field of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature, but Twain has been a special and ongoing interest of his from the beginning. His Modern Library edition of The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain came out in 2004. Berkove is also a leading authority on the literature of the Sagebrush School of late nineteenth-century Nevada, whose members had a formative influence on Twain. He is now working on a book-length study of Twains religion and its influence on his literature.

John Bird is Professor of English at Winthrop University. He has published articles on Mark Twain and is the editor of the Mark Twain Circle of Americas annual publication, The Mark Twain Annual. He is completing a book on Mark Twain and metaphor.

Louis J. Budd, James B. Duke Professor (Emeritus) of English at Duke University, has concentrated on American realism and naturalism, especially as seen in the novels of William Dean Howells. He has also published steadily on the career of Mark Twain, most often as manifested in his literary reputation, popular images, and citizenship.