A selective bibliography of open access articles on Mark Twain, favoring signed articles by known scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the Modern Language Association Guidelines for Authors of Web Pages. From LiteraryHistory.com
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Berkove, Lawrence I. "'A Difficult Case': W.D. Howells's impression of Mark Twain," Studies in Short Fiction, Fall, 1994
Bercovitch, Sacvan. What's Funny About Huckleberry Finn? a renowned Americanist approaches the American "national epic.""Mark Twain's humor is deadpan at its best, and Huckleberry Finn is his funniest book. The novel draws on techniques from all three stages of his career, from his early slap-stick tales of the Wild West to his savage satires of the Gilded Age."
Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. Review of Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African American Voices (Oxford Univ. Press). "The welcome contribution in Shelley Fisher Fishkin's Was Huck Black? is her general point that Mark Twain's writings are pervaded by African American culture, and not only in his black characters." Reviewed in MELUS, Fall, 1995, by Randall Knoper. Another review, from African American Review, Spring, 1995, by Pascal Covici, Jr.
Goode, Stephen. "Congress: a laughing matter - history of political humor - Mark Twain and Will Rogers." Insight on the News, July 22, 1996
Herreshoff, David. "Teaching Mark Twain in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s." A teacher recounts his attempts to make Twain relevant to his students' concerns through the decades. Monthly Review, June, 1984
Hoffman, Daniel J. A review of Hoffman's Inventing Mark Twain: The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. "Mark Twain knew the value of bad publicity. In 1885, when the Public Library of Concord, Massachusetts, banned Huckleberry Finn, he wrote to his publisher: 'They have expelled Huck from their library as 'trash suitable only for the slums'. That will sell 25,000 copies for us for sure.'" Reviewed in New Statesman, Sept 19, 1997, by Charles Glass (removed from findarticles.com)
King, Florence. Short review of Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays, 2 vols. (Library of America). Reviewed in National Review, Jan 18, 1993, by Florence King
Lopez, Delano Jose. "Snaring the fowler: Mark Twain debunks phrenology. In the 1870s Mark Twain performed a single-blind reliability test on the analysis technique of Lorenzo Niles Fowler, one of the eminent phrenologists of the day." Skeptical Inquirer, Jan-Feb, 2002
Messent, Peter. "Carnival in Mark Twain's 'Stirring Times in Austria' and 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.'" Discusses Cynthia Ozick's introduction to The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays and Bruce Michelson's analysis of 'The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg' in Mark Twain on the Loose. Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1998
Quirk, Tom. A review of Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction (Twayne's Studies in Short Fiction Series, 1997) Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1998 Reviewed by Jason Horn
Rexroth, Kenneth. An introduction to Mark Twain by poet Kenneth Rexroth Originally published as a review of The Autobiography of Mark Twain (1959)
Salwen, Peter. "Mark Twain & Walt Whitman," a short paper delivered to the Mark Twain Association of New York, April 4, 1992
Smiley, Jane. Article by novelist Jane Smiley contends that Huck Finn does not deserve the high place it holds in the American canon. "Say it ain't so, Huck; second thoughts on Mark Twain's 'masterpiece.'" - 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' Harper's Magazine, Jan, 1996 (removed from findarticles.com)
Stahl, J.D. A review of Mark Twain, Culture and Gender: Envisioning America Through Europe (Univ. of Georgia Press, 1994). Reviewed in Papers on Language and Literature, Winter 1995 by Roberta Seelinger Trites. Another review, from Studies in Short Fiction, Spring, 1995, reviewer Heather Kirk Thomas
Thomas, Brook. A complete, book-length critical study, American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract. "Thomas investigates a host of issues at the forefront of public debate in the nineteenth century: race and the meaning of equality, miscegenation, marriage, labor unrest, economic transformation, and changes in notions of human agency and subjectivity. Cross-examining a wide range of key literary and legal texts, he rethinks the ways they relate to each other and to their social milieu." Includes a chapter on Twain, "Twain, Tourgée, and the Logic of "Separate but Equal.'" Univ. of California Press, 1997, California Digital Library
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. "Traveling with Twain in an Age of Simulations: Rereading and reliving The Innocents Abroad," in Commonplace, vol. 4, no. 3 (April 2004)
Wonham, Henry B. A review of Wonham's Mark Twain and the Art of the Tall Tale. Reviewed in Studies in Short Fiction, Wntr, 1994 by Roscoe L. Buckland
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The Mark Twain Papers and Project at the Bancroft Library, Univ. of Calif. "The combination of original and photocopied documents now makes it possible to read virtually every document in Mark Twain's hand known to survive without leaving Berkeley." The web site contains searchable databases and exhibitions on Twain's travels (Early Travels; The Mississippi River; Roughing It in the West and Hawaii; Europe and the Holy Land; England; Following the Equator; Bermuda) and on his reactions to art
An interpretive archive for Mark Twain. Using manuscripts, nineteenth century reviews, images, and interactive exhibits drawn from the Special Collections at the Univ. of Virginia, Professor Stephen Railton has created a visual web site on Mark Twain, "to allow readers, scholars, students and teachers to see what Mark Twain and His Times said about each other, in a way that can speak to us today." Includes sections on Tom Sawyer, Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Marketing Mark Twain, and Mark Twain on Stage
A PBS web site on Ken Burns's film about Mark Twain contains "Mark Twain's Interactive Scrapbook" and suggestions for teaching Twain
The Twain Web, the web site of the Mark Twain Forum. Contains book reviews from book review editor Barbara Schmidt, access to the list's archives back to 1992, and several scholarly articles
The Mark Twain Circular, the publication of the Mark Twain Society of America, contains brief notes and articles, and short, annotated current bibliographies
Mark Twain's papers at Columbia Univ., catalog entry
A web site on Mark Twain by Gonzoga Univ. professor Donna Campbell has good, current links and extensive links to pages from the Making of America Site
A primary and selected secondary bibliography for Mark Twain and some discussion questions, from Professor Paul Reuben
Older criticism of Mark Twain from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21)
A brief biography of Mark Twain from the Books and Writers web site, Kuusankoski Public Library, Finland
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