Mark Twain's Humor: Critical Essays(Routledge Library Editions: The American Novel)

Originally published in 1993. The purpose of this volume is to lay out documents which give an estimate of Mark Twain as a humourist in both historical scope and in the analysis of modern scholars. The emphasis in this collection is on how Twain developed from a contemporary humourist among many others of his generation into a major comic writer and American spokesman and, in several more recent essays by younger Twain scholars, the outcomes of that development late in his career. The essays determine how the humor takes on meaning and importance and how the humor works in a number of ways in the literary canon and even in the persona of Mark Twain.

Table of Contents:
General Editor’s Note; Acknowledgements; Chronology; Introduction David E. E. Sloane; Part One: The Early Writings of Mark Twain: The Growth of the Comedian; 1. "My Voice is Still for Setchell’: A Background Study of ‘Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog’ Edgar M. Branch 2. Burlesque Travel Literature and Mark Twain’s Roughing It Franklin R. Rogers 3. From the Old Southwest Pascal Covici, Jr. 4. A Curious Republican Louis J. Budd 5. Toward the Novel David E. E. Sloane; Part Two: The Middle Career of Mark Twain from Tom Sawyer to Pudd’nhead Wilson: The Comedian as Major Author; 6. Novels of the Week: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Athenaeum 7. On the Structure of Tom Sawyer Walter Blair 8. Mark Twain William Dean Howells 9. Trowbridge and Clemens Rufus A. Coleman 10. Musings without Method Blackwood’s Magazine 11. Mark Twain and the Old Time Subscription Book George Ade 12. Mark Twain on the Lecture Platform Will M. Clemens 13. Life Reviews Huckleberry Finn Durant Da Ponte 14. Huckleberry Finn: The Book We Love to Hate Leslie A. Fielder 15. A Sound Heart and a Deformed Conscience Henry Nash Smith 16. A Connecticut Yankee Anticipated: Max Adeler’s Fortunate Island Edward F. Foster 17. Yankee Slang James M. Cox 18. ‘I Kind of Love Small Game’: Mark Twain’s Library of Literary Hogwash Alan Gribben 19. The American Claimant: Reclamation of a Farce Clyde Grimm 20. Mark Twain – An Intimate Memory Henry Watterson 21. The Book Hunter [Review of Pudd’nhead Wilson] The Idler 22. In Re ‘Pudd’nhead Wilson’ Martha McCulloch Williams 23. ‘The Tales He Couldn’t Tell’: Mark Twain, Race and Culture at the Century’s End: A Social Context for Pudd’nhead Wilson Selley Fisher Fishkin; Part Three: The Later Career of Mark Twain: The Comedian as a Cultural Representative 24. Mark Twain: An Inquiry William Dean Howells 25. The International Fame of Mark Twain Archibald Henderson 26. An Inspired Critic Edith Wyatt 27. The Anecdotal Side of Mark Twain The Ladies’ Home Journal 28. 3.-Mark Twain A. C. Ward 29. Review of Tom Sawyer Abroad The Academy 30. ‘Hadleyburg’: Mark Twain’s Dual Attack on Banal Theology and Banal Literature Susan K. Harris 31. Is the Philippine Policy of the Administration Just? John Kendrick Bangs and Mark Twain 32. Reconstructing the ‘Imagination Mill’: The Mystery of Mark Twain’s Late Works Susanne Weil 33. Coming Back to Humor: The Comic Voice in Mark Twain’s Autobiography Michael J. Kiskis 34. ‘The Mysterious Stranger’: Absence of the Female in Mark Twain Biography Laura E. Skandera-Trombley; Selected Bibliography; Index