When I read Bob Hirst's assertion in the intro (p viii) that Mark Twain left
behind the largest cache of personal papers of any 19th century author
(including letters, notebooks, etc), I stopped and pondered over what that
could mean. I got out two old union lists of mss and began checking for
large archives and did not find any that would compare to the MTP.  There
are certainly some large archives of published writings by American authors
(Norman Mailer's papers recently processed at UT, for example) that might,
pound for pound, page for page, out weigh or outnumber Twain's, but when it
comes to unpublished writings --not a small qualifier-- I could not find any
probable contenders and therefore modified my own statement from what Bob
had said. Both might be correct, but I felt on firmer ground limiting my
statement to unpublished papers. Yes, any living author could be sitting on
a mound of unpublished writings, but to beat Twain's record they'll have to
die so that their papers are "left behind."  There may indeed be some 19th
century American author who left behind more unpublished writings, but I
could not find one.

Is "lou" Missourian for "loo"?  Do my reviews read better that way?

Kevin Mac Donnell
Austin TX