Mark Twain and Human Nature

Acknowledgments

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s Portions of this book have been published before, though they have been revised to fit the theme and purposes of this work. Specifically, my discussion of “Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut ” and “Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” borrow from earlier analysis in Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction (Twayne Publishers, 1997). Much of my discussion of The Innocents Abroad derives from my “Introduction” to an edition of that text (Penguin Classics, 2002). Parts of Chapter Six draw upon an earlier essay—“Mark Twain in Large and Small: The Infinite and the Infinitesimal in Twain’s Late Writing” in Constructing Mark Twain: New Directions in Scholarship, ed. Laura SkanderaTrombley and Michael Kiskis (University of Missouri Press, 2001). These borrowings indicate to me that, without really knowing it, I had been contemplating the subject of Mark Twain and human nature for some time before committing myself to a larger inquiry.Another essay, however, was written after this project was well under way and drew upon passages from the book in progress. That essay is “Mark Twain and Human Nature ” in A Companion to Mark Twain, ed. Peter Messent and Louis J. Budd (Blackwell Publishing, 2005). Anyone in this line of work piles up a lot of debts. The characteristic generosity of Twain scholars makes the load heavier still. I am tempted to recycle the maneuver of Flip Wilson in one of his stand-up routines. Midway through he abruptly changes the subject: “Now, I am going to talk i x about ugly people!” Then looking thoughtfully at the audience, he adds: “I am not going to point you out. You know who you are.” Not a single one of the people I am thinking of is ugly, not a single one. Decency requires , however, that I supply at least a first-name census of those who, either through encouragement or example, make this sort of endeavor worthwhile. There are a couple of Bobs, two Vics, a Sue, a Laura or two, a Linda, an Ann, and a Catherine. There is a James, a Jeff, and a Jim, a Howard, a Henry, a Fred, a David, a Gretchen, a Tom, a Gary, a Michael, an Alan, and two Joes. There is a Larry and, believe it or not, a Mo. There is no Curly that I remember. There is a Ron, a Pete and another Pete, a Horst and a Holger, and many, many others. Once there were two Leons, a George, and a Ham, but no longer. Louis Budd read the entire manuscript and at least tried to steer me clear of the grosser stupidities. There is and always will be only one Lou. x A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s ...