I'd like to wish Mark Twain Forum members a Happy New Year, and take a
moment to thank some of the people who greatly contributed to it in
1995.
The Forum is truly a collaborative enterprise among its subscribers, and
would not be anything without the many thoughtful messages that are
posted; thanks to those subscribers for contributing their knowledge.
Kevin J. Bochynski is often behind the scenes making immense
contributions to net-connected Twainians. Kevin is always engaged in
answering queries, bringing new books and items of interest to our
attention, scanning photos for the Web, encouraging more Twain scholars
and institutions to come online, and sharing what he knows about Mark
Twain, computers, and the net.
Thanks are also due to James S. Leonard, editor of the _Mark Twain
Circular_, for keeping MT Circle of America members abreast of the
Forum's happenings and whereabouts. The _Circular_ is the Forum's
principal link to "hard copy" Twainians.
The Forum is intended to be scholarly, timely, and informative, and
nobody helps to promote this tone more than the book reviewers. Many
thanks to the people who helped to keep the rest of us apprised of the
latest Twain publications by reviewing books in 1995:
Timothy J. Beals
31 August. J.D. Stahl, _Mark Twain, Culture and Gender:
Envisioning America Through Europe_ (Athens and London:
University of Georgia Press, 1994).
Wesley Britton
10 January. David E. E. Sloane (ed.), _MT's Humor_ (Garland,
1993).
12 July. Harriet Elinor Smith and Edgar M. Branch (eds.),
_Roughing It_ (U of California, 1993).
12 July. De Quille, Dan (William Wright), _The Sorceress of Attu_.
Ed. Lawrence I. Berkove. (Dearborn: Mardigian Library,
University of Michigan-Dearborn, 1994.)
29 August. R. Kent Rasmussen, _Mark Twain A to Z: The Essential
Reference to His Life and Writings_ (New York: Facts On File,
1995).
Gregg Camfield
8 December. Tom Quirk (ed.), _Tales, Speeches, Essays and
Sketches_ (Penguin, 1994).
Mary Leah Christmas
16 November. R. Kent Rasmussen (ed.), _Mark Twain's Book for Bad
Boys and Girls_ (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1995).
Robert C. Comeau
9 June. Jim Zwick (ed.), _Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-
Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War_
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992).
Dennis Eddings
27 February. Laura Skandera-Trombley, _MT in the Company of Women_
(U of Pennsylvania Press, 1994).
8 December. Jack Cady, _The Off Season: A Victorian Sequel_ (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1995).
Jim McWilliams
28 December. Peter J. Heck, _Death on the Mississippi: A Mark
Twain Mystery_ (New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1995).
R. Kent Rasmussen
14 February. Audiotapes. Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Roughing
It (Books on Tape); _MT Gift Set_: Huckleberry Finn,
Connecticut Yankee, Jumping Frog (The Mind's Eye).
Barbara Taylor
2 May. Robert M. Rodney, _Mark Twain Overseas: A Biographical
Account of His Voyages, Travels, and Reception in Foreign
Lands, 1866-1910_ (Three Continents Press, 1993).
David Tomlinson
15 February. Anthony J. Berret, _Mark Twain and Shakespeare: A
Cultural Legacy_ (Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
1993).
18 September. Howard G. Baetzhold and Joseph B. McCullough (eds.),
_The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven, Eden,
and the Flood_ (Athens and London: University of Georgia
Press, 1995).
If you have any money in your book-buying budget after the holidays, all
of the reviews are worth reading, and they are available in the Forum's
archive files. If you would like more information on how to retrieve
monthly notebooks, how to sign off this list, and so on, send a message
to [log in to unmask] with a blank subject and the following command in
the body of the message:
GET TWAIN-L WELCOME
I would like to make the book reviews more easily accessible by putting
them on the Forum's home page. If anyone has the time and expertise to
convert the reviews to HTML format, please feel free to volunteer!
Thanks again to everyone for their help with the Forum. If you feel the
urge to echo my sentiments, please don't take me as an example and post
them to TWAIN-L, but send them by private mail, so that we can continue
to keep the postings here about Mark Twain. I'm sorry for my own
intrusion in this regard, but I wanted to recognize the contributions of
the people listed above.
Taylor Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
Coordinator, Mark Twain Forum
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