Guide to further readingBiographyHill, 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.
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.
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.
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.
BibliographyTenney, 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).
General reference guidesCamfield, 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.
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.
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.
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.
Critical overviews of Twain (edited collections)Bloom, Harold (ed.). Mark Twain. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. A well-balanced collection and wide-ranging introduction to Twain.
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.
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 imperialism
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.
Robinson, Forrest (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Mark Twain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Punchy and unusual set of essays in this reliable series.
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.
Critical overviews of Twain (single-authored works)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.
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.
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.
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.
Messent, Peter. Mark Twain. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1997. Introductory overview and close critical analysis of the major texts.
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.
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’.
Books about Adventures of Huckleberry FinnArac, 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’.
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.
Budd, Louis J. (ed.). New Essays on Huckleberry Finn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Good short collection of essays in a reliable series.
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.
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.
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.
CD Rom on Adventures of Huckleberry FinnHuck 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.
Books about Puddn'head WilsonRobinson, 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.
The short worksMessent, 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.
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.
The travel booksBridgman, 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.
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.
Twain and genderHarris, 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.
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.
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.
The late writingsGillman, 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.
Internet sitesMark 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.
