At 01:58 AM 11/24/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Dear Sirs;
>
>As an older (much) reader of Twain's writings, I find much food-for-thought
>in his works and must say that his (???) Mysterious Stranger is one of my
>favorite head-ache works.
>
>Why should I be cautious about it? Why should I be sceptical about its
>authorship? Its origin and form? Its intent and literary ranking?

The title we know as "The Mysterious Stranger" actually contains work that
partially belongs to Twain and work that belongs, jointly I suppose, to AB
Paine and Frederick Duneka. Paine and Duneka fathered (one of them had to
be a mother) the character of the astrologer we find in their book.

Twain made three starts on manuscripts of this nature, none of which was
finished. "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger" is the only time the title
under discussion was used by Twain and the, as you can see, it was a
subtitle. It was a subtitle to an unfinished manuscript at that.

The other two unifinished works by Twain were "The Chronicle of Young
Satan" and "Schoolhouse Hill."

"Mark Twain A to Z," which provided much of the information for this
response, presents a nice article on this literary hoax.

Regards,

Marc


". . . and so there ain't nothing more to write about and I am rotten glad
ot it  . . ." - H.F.

Marcus W. Koechig
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Specialist in Mark Twain and His contemporaries. General stock also
available.