Mark Twain and Human Nature

A Note on the Texts

A N o t e o n t h e Te x t s I have attempted to cite authoritative texts throughout. In most instances that means texts prepared by the Mark Twain Project and published by the University of California Press. In some instances (with No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger, for example) I have referenced the paperback edition, also published by the University of California Press, on the assumption that readers would appreciate general availability of a given work when there was no compromise in the reliability of the text. In the absence of texts approved by the Modern Language Association’s Committee on Scholarly Editions, I have usually referenced the first American edition, and those may be found in the facsimile editions published as The Oxford Mark Twain, edited by Shelley Fisher Fishkin. Again, there are some exceptions. The Penguin editions of The Innocents Abroad, The Gilded Age, and Life on the Mississippi are an improvement over the first American editions, and those are the texts cited here. Likewise, the edition of Pudd’nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins published by W. W. Norton is superior to the first American edition. x i ...