Peter Messent is Professor of Modern American Literature at Nottingham University. He is the author of The Short Works of Mark Twain: A Critical Study (2001), Mark Twain (1997), Ernest Hemingway (1992), and New Readings of the American Novel: Narrative Theory and its Application (1990), and editor of Criminal Proceedings: The Contemporary American Crime Novel (1997). Louis J. Budd is James B. Duke Professor (Emeritus) of American Literature at Duke University, where he taught American Literature from 1981 to 1991. He is the author of Mark Twain: Social Philosopher (reissued 2001) and Our Mark Twain: The Making of his Public Personality (1983) and the editor of Mark Twain: The Contemporary Reviews (1999). He served as founding president of the Mark Twain Circle of America.

"The editors have done an exemplary job in maintaining a very high level of scholarly excellence in almost all these contributions. On a vast range of subjects there is a plenitude here of scholarly research and insight, some of it at least exploring new ground …  and much of it proving illuminating and challenging." (Notes and Queries, June 2009) "Highly recommended for the reference shelves of libraries collecting work on American literature and culture." (Reference Reviews)

• Notes on Contributors xNote on Referencing xviiAcknowledgments xixPART I The Cultural Context 11 Mark Twain and Nation 3Randall Knoper2 Mark Twain and Human Nature 21Tom Quirk3 Mark Twain and America's Christian Mission Abroad 38Susan K. Harris4 Mark Twain and Whiteness 53Richard S. Lowry5 Mark Twain and Gender 66Peter Stoneley6 Twain and Modernity 78T. J. Lustig7 Mark Twain and Politics 94James S. Leonard8 "The State, it is I": Mark Twain, Imperialism, and the New Americanists 109Scott MichaelsenPART II Mark Twain and Others 1239 Twain, Language, and the Southern Humorists 125Gavin Jones10 The "American Dickens": Mark Twain and Charles Dickens 141Christopher Gair11 Nevada Influences on Mark Twain 157Lawrence I. Berkove12 The Twain-Cable Combination 172Stephen Railton13 Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Realism 186Peter MessentPART III Mark Twain: Publishing and Performing 20914 "I don't know A from B" Mark Twain and Orality 211Thomas D. Zlatic15 Mark Twain and the Profession of Writing 228Leland Krauth16 Mark Twain and the Promise and Problems of Magazines 243Martin T. Buinicki17 Mark Twain and the Stage 259Shelley Fisher Fishkin18 Mark Twain on the Screen 274R. Kent Rasmussen and Mark DawidziakPART IV Mark Twain and Travel 29119 Twain and the Mississippi 293Andrew Dix20 Mark Twain and the Literary Construction of the American West 309Gary Scharnhorst21 Mark Twain and Continental Europe 324Holger Kersten22 Mark Twain and Travel Writing 338Jeffrey Alan MeltonPART V Mark Twain' Fiction 35523 Mark Twain's Short Fiction 357Henry B. Wonham24 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Prince and the Pauper as Juvenile Literature 371Linda A. Morris25 Plotting and Narrating "Huck" 387Victor Doyno26 Going to Tom's Hell in Huckleberry Finn 401Hilton Obenzinger27 History, "Civilization," and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court 416Sam Halliday28 Mark Twain's Dialects 431David Lionel Smith29 Killing Half A Dog, Half A Novel: The Trouble With The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and The Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins 441John Bird30 Dreaming Better Dreams: The Late Writing of Mark Twain 449Forrest G. RobinsonPART VI Mark Twain's Humor 46731 Mark Twain's Visual Humor 469Louis J. Budd32 Mark Twain and Post-Civil War Humor 485Cameron C. Nickels33 Mark Twain and Amiable Humor 500Gregg Camfield34 Mark Twain and the Enigmas of Wit 513Bruce MichelsonPART VII A Retrospective 53135 The State of Mark Twain Studies 533Alan GribbenIndex 555