Hill, Hamlin. Mark Twain: God's Fool. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Provocative reading of Twain's late years focusing on the disintegration of Twain's family and his growing sense of rage at the world around him. An unbalanced but powerful book.Google Scholar

Kaplan, Justin. Mr Clemens and Mark Twain. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970. A lively and well-written biography of Twain's most successful years (from 1866 on). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and a benchmark for all biography since.Google Scholar

Powers, Ron. Mark Twain: A Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. The best of the full-life biographies written in recent years. Good use made of Twain's own correspondence, but pays little attention to Twain's last decade.Google Scholar

Steinbrink, Jeffrey. Getting to Be Mark Twain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Intriguing study of Twain's life and career in the years 1867–1871.Google Scholar

Tenney, Thomas A.Mark Twain: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977. Supplements in the journals American Literary Realism and the Mark Twain Circular. For more recent bibliography, see the major Twain critical works and websites (below).Google Scholar

Camfield, Gregg. The Oxford Companion to Mark Twain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Part-encyclopaedia, part-essay collection, an A-Z approach to key Twain subjects and texts. Oddball, but often penetrating.Google Scholar

Gribben, Alan. Mark Twain's Library: A Reconstruction. 2 vols. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980. Invaluable resource for tracing what Twain was reading and its influence on him.Google Scholar

LeMaster, J. R. and Wilson, James D.The Mark Twain Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, 1993. Useful series of (mostly short) essays on works, characters and Twain-related topics. Some unevenness in quality.Google Scholar

Rasmussen, R. Kent. Mark Twain A–Z: The Essential Reference Guide to His Life and Writings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. This book is what it says it is – essential. Contains general information about Twain and the thick context of his life and works (plots, people, places, and all related knowledge). Factual and avoids critical opinion.Google Scholar

Bloom, Harold (ed.). Mark Twain. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. A well-balanced collection and wide-ranging introduction to Twain.Google Scholar

Budd, Louis J. (ed.). Mark Twain: The Contemporary Reviews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Impressive collection of newspaper and journal responses to Twain's work in his lifetime.Google Scholar

Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. A Historical Guide to Mark Twain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Good essays by major Twain critics on a series of topics including race, commerce, religion, gender, social class and imperialismGoogle Scholar

Messent, Peter and Budd, Louis J. (eds). A Companion to Mark Twain. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Substantive essay collection by noted Twain scholars. Sections include: cultural contexts, travel, publishing and performing, fiction and humour.Google Scholar

Robinson, Forrest (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Mark Twain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Punchy and unusual set of essays in this reliable series.Google Scholar

Sundquist, Eric J.Mark Twain: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1994. Excellent short collection, mostly on the major works.Google Scholar

Budd, Louis J.Mark Twain: Social Philosopher. Bloomington: Indiana Uniervsity Press, 1962. Comprehensive study of the development of Twain's social and political attitudes and relationship to his historical times.Google Scholar

Cox, James M.Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. An important early book exploring Twain's use of humour and how it relates to the serious issues addressed in his work.Google Scholar

Knoper, Randall. Acting Naturally: Mark Twain in the Culture of Performance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Examines performance and the use of dramatic device in Twain, paying close attention to class, race, gender and economic and scientific change.Google Scholar

Lowry, Richard S. ‘Littery Man’: Mark Twain and Modern Authorship. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. On Twain, his career as a writer and publisher, and the professionalisation of literature in the US. Strong on Twain and realism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Messent, Peter. Mark Twain. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1997. Introductory overview and close critical analysis of the major texts.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Michelson, Bruce. Mark Twain on the Loose: A Comic Writer and the American Self. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995. Sparky and stimulating study exploring the outrageous and anarchic sides of Twain's humour and its cultural importance.Google Scholar

Smith, Henry Nash. Mark Twain: The Development of a Writer.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962. Another important early study, focusing on Twain's use of vernacular language and values and on ‘the matter of Hannibal’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Arac, Jonathan. Huckleberry Finn as Idol and Target: The Functions of Criticism in Our Time. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Contentious but important book, exploring Twain's novel in the context of American cultural history and interrogating its ‘hypercanonization’.Google Scholar

Blair, Walter. Mark Twain & Huck Finn. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962. On the factors – biographical, philosophical and artistic – contributing to the making of the novel. The account of the composition process is now outmoded, but still a valuable study.Google Scholar

Budd, Louis J. (ed.). New Essays on Huckleberry Finn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Good short collection of essays in a reliable series.Google Scholar

Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American Voices. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Important argument about the way African American voices, language and rhetorical traditions figure in Twain's novel. An influential book.Google Scholar

Leonard, James S., Tenney, Thomas A., and Davis, Thadious M. (eds.). Satire or Evasion? Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn. Durham: Duke University Press, 1992. Collection of essays by African American scholars reassessing the racial aspects of the novel.Google Scholar

Sattelmeyer, Robert, and Crowley, J. Donald (eds.). One Hundred Years of Huckleberry Finn:The Boy, His Book, and American Culture. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985. Substantial centenary collection of essays.Google Scholar

Huck Finn: The Complete Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Manuscript – Teaching and Research Digital Edition, 2003. Invaluable source and other material collated by Victor Doyno. Contains Twain's manuscript version of the novel and the alterations he made, plus a wealth of critical and background information.

Robinson, Forrest G., and Gillman, Susan (eds.). Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: Race, Conflict, and Culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990. Strong collection of essays.Google Scholar

Messent, Peter. The Short Works of Mark Twain: A Critical Study. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. A close study of the collections of short writings Twain published in his lifetime.Google Scholar

Quirk, Tom. Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1997. Good introductory study divided by period, plus a selection of critical essays by others.Google Scholar

Bridgman, Richard. Traveling in Mark Twain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Sharp analysis of Twain's use of the travel book form and of the travel narratives.Google Scholar

Melton, Jeffrey Alan. Mark Twain, Travel Books, and Tourism: The Tide of a Great Popular Movement. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002. How Twain subverts generic expectations and how the travel books reflect his intellectual and emotional growth.Google Scholar

Harris, Susan K.The Courtship of Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. A study of the courtship and gender roles and of the intellectual and emotional life of the couple.Google Scholar

Stahl, J. D.Mark Twain, Culture and Gender: Envisioning America through Europe. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. Careful study of Twain's shifting conceptions of gender and sexuality in his European fictional and non-fictional work.Google Scholar

Stoneley, Peter. Mark Twain and the Feminine Aesthetic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. An exploration of Twain's preoccupation with the role, nature and value of the ‘feminine’ over a wide range of his writings.Google Scholar

Gillman, Susan. Dark Twins: Imposture and Identity in Mark Twain's America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Highly theorised but perceptive book on Twain and identity, his explorations of racial and sexual difference and the late Dream Writings.Google Scholar

Mark Twain (http://www.boondocksnet.com/twainwww/) Edited by Jim Zwick. Wide ranging site with especially good material on anti-imperialism.

Mark Twain at Large: His Travels Here and Abroad (http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/Exhibits/MTP/) From the Mark Twain Papers at Berkeley. An excellent exhibition on Twain's travel writing.

Mark Twain in His Times (http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/index2.html) From the University of Virginia. Invaluable site. Primary and secondary texts, contemporary reviews and articles, images, interactive exhibits.

www.twainquotes.com (http://www.twainquotes.com/quotesatoz.html) Very useful alphabetical subject-directory of Twain quotes, maxims and opinions.