I will second Michael Kiskis's recommending the edition he did of the
dictations.  It is very readable and wide-ranging, and full of good
stories.  I will also echo his statement about vast materials of those
dictations (most made in the mid to late 1900s; esp. around 1905-1906 or
so).  Much of it is quite interesting, although like the fiction of the
period full of false starts.  Additionally, when working with this
material, one must always be aware of the faulty memories, or the
self-serving and vindictive memories.

Having been away much of the summer, I should also like to say a couple
things things about the long-winded concerning a "definitive" biography of
Twain.

1.  I think a better word might be a "standard" biography, of which there
are several.  Other major writers all seem to have a handful of such
animals:  for instance, Joan Hedrick's work on Harriet Beecher Stowe is now
the standard work;  or Edel's work on Henry James, or whatever.  Of course
each of these can be criticized--and have--for various reasons.  But nobody
would claim that they are "definitive," whatever that might mean.

2.  I still think that the controversy over Andy Hoffman's detailed and
quite informative biography is about more than just the surface issues on
sexuality.  For instance, several folks mentioned books that seem standard
but are now recognized to have flaws, if not outright distortions.  I am
thinking of, for example, the Freudian bias of the works by Justin Kaplan
and Hamlin Hill.  However, we do not disqualify those works because of the
misrepresentations that they have posited.  Why disqualify Hoffman's book
because it contains a similar misrepresentation?

My point will undoubtedly just stir up the same old same old, but I must
say that as much as I admire Hamlin Hill's book on the last decade, many of
his conclusions appear to me to be quite wrong.  Furthermore, he distorts
the entire religious and spiritual aspect of those years.  Yet I still find
it a very valuable, and in a sense standard version of those years -- at
least until someone comes along and surpasses it.

Let us recall the words of eminent Twain biographer Everett Emerson when
Hoffman's book first appeared:
I hope that [Felker's] review will not keep Mark Twainians from reading the
book, which contains much information not found elsewhere. . . . It is well
paced, well-written, clear.  The sexual issues identified in the review do
not loom large in the book.  Hoffman has done his homework.

3.  Since every biography does contain distortions if not outright
mistakes, or even bad derived conclusions, should we simply ignore
everything else in the book?  However, with the issues of sexuality, it
seems that some have simply reached a limit--perhaps of decorum, or
whatever.  But I simply bring up the question of why one kind of possible
distortion should be so strongly divisive while other kinds of
distortions--dressed, perhaps, in "theoretical speculation"--do not.

I am still trying to figure all of this out . . . . .

Harold K. Bush, Ph. D.
Saint Louis University