[N.B. The following review was written by R. Kent Rasmussen, on
whose behalf I am merely posting it.  Rasmussen's "preview review"
appeared on 20 January 1997. --T.R.]

BOOK REVIEW

     Fishkin, Shelley Fisher (ed.), _The Oxford Mark Twain_.  New
     York: Oxford University Press, 1996.  29 vols.  Pp. 14,176.
     Cloth, 6-3/8" x 8-7/16".  Library edition, $495.00.
     ISBN 0-19-511345-4.

     Many books reviewed on the Forum are available at discounted
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     Please visit <http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/forum/>.

     Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:

          R. Kent Rasmussen <[log in to unmask]>

     Copyright (c) 1999 Mark Twain Forum.  This review may not be
     published or redistributed in any medium without permission.


Quite likely the greatest bargain that collectors of Mark Twain
will ever encounter, the _Oxford Mark Twain_ (OMT) comprises 29
well-made facsimile reproductions of American first editions at
prices that have ranged as low as seven dollars per volume through
mail-order dealers.  The set is a one-step shortcut to building a
major Mark Twain book collection.  Its 14,176 pages will fill a
standard three-foot bookshelf, with a few inches spilling over.
Bound in a uniform size with sturdy boards, these are books one can
read and handle without worrying about damaging, while enjoying
their several thousand original illustrations.

Despite its size, the OMT does not constitute the "complete works"
of Mark Twain, and what it is and is not will be the focus of this
review.  However, I must emphasize that whatever criticisms I make
of it, the set offers such great riches that nothing can diminish
the extraordinary value that it is.  In addition to providing
sturdy, readable copies of the often wonderful first editions, the
set offers the equivalent of several volumes of wholly new material
in the form of expert commentaries by modern authors and scholars.
Editor Shelley Fisher Fishkin assembled an impressive list of
writers to undertake this work.  For example, Nobel Prize-winning
novelist Toni Morrison wrote an introduction to _Huckleberry Finn_,
to which Vic Doyno contributed a scholarly afterword.  (For details
on individual volumes, visit the Oxford University Press web site
at <http://www.oup-usa.org/>.)

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

What is meant by "facsimile" edition is simply this: the core of
each OMT volume consists of pages photographically reproduced from
the first editions.  The printed matter on each page looks almost
exactly like that on the original book's pages.  However, the pages
as a whole do not match the appearance of the originals because
their sizes differ.  Every OMT page measures 6-1/2" x 8-3/4"--a
size unlike that of any of the original books.  All OMT books also
differ from the original counterparts in being printed on identical
matte-surfaced, cream-colored paper--a good quality, acid-free
material.

The OMT books do not carry facsimile reproduction beyond their
printed pages.  Their bindings are uniform, making no attempt to
replicate cover designs of the originals.  However, black and white
photographs of first edition covers are printed inside each OMT
volume (except _What Is Man?_, whose first edition had a blank
cover).  Though useful, these cover photographs are not uniformly
satisfactory.  This is due partly to the fact that some of the
original cover designs do not reproduce well photographically and
partly to the poor condition of many of the books whose covers were
copied.  (With a few exceptions, all the books used for OMT
facsimiles come from the Mark Twain House in Hartford.)  Moreover,
although pages in OMT books are larger than the covers of most of
the first editions, they reduce the cover photos to a uniform size
and do not indicate the original covers' dimensions.

The cover photographs would also be more useful if they included
the original books' spines--some of which are more elaborately
decorated and interesting than the front covers.  Judging from the
cover photos printed in the OMT books, a conscious effort seems to
have been made to avoid using books in fine condition.  For
example, the book from which the cover photo of _The Stolen White
Elephant_ volume was taken appears to have no spine, and its cover
has an unsightly stain.  It's a shame that better-looking books
were not used for these photographs.  What's the point of
protecting nearly perfect copies of books--which few people will
ever see--while their threadbare cousins are trotted out to be
photographed and duplicated by the thousands?

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL MATTERS

Almost every aspect of Mark Twain bibliography has some screwy
complication and the OMT is no exception.  The set comprises 29
volumes, but these do not correspond exactly to 29 first-edition
books.  The set actually contains more than 29 original book
titles; exactly how many more is partly a matter of semantics.
Twenty-four OMT volumes are reproductions of single-volume books,
such as _Huckleberry Finn_ and _The Innocents Abroad_.  The
remaining five volumes are composites of various types.  For
example, one of them combines the complete texts of _Extracts from
Adam's Diary_ and _Eve's Diary_.  Another three composite volumes
are more complicated.  That containing _Following the Equator_, for
example, also includes _King Leopold's Soliloquy_ and "To the
Person Sitting in Darkness."  The first two items were originally
published as books, but the third title was a 16-page tract; should
it be counted as a "book"?

Additional confusion arises in categorizing the contents of the
volume titled _The Stolen White Elephant and Other Detective
Stories_.  It contains all of the original collection called
_Stolen White Elephant, Etc._ (1882), plus all of another complete
book, _A Double-Barrelled Detective Story_ (1902), and "Tom Sawyer,
Detective" (1896).  The Tom Sawyer novella differs from _Tom Sawyer
Abroad_ (which has its own OMT volume) in having never been
published as a book by itself.  The facsimile pages of it that are
reproduced in the OMT volume are taken from its first publication
in book form, as part of _Tom Sawyer Abroad, Tom Sawyer, Detective,
and Other Stories, Etc., Etc._ (1896).

The volume titled _Chapters from My Autobiography_ has a legitimate
claim to being called a "first edition" in its own right.  The
pages it reproduces in facsimile have never been published before
in book form; they are copied directly from articles published in
the _North American Review_ in 1906-07.  (Michael Kiskis's 1990
edition of _Mark Twain's Own Autobiography_ reprints the same
texts, but in freshly set type.)

Nothing in the OMT books themselves or in the set's promotional
material makes any definitive or extravagant claims about what the
set includes.  In an editorial note printing at the beginning of
each volume, Fishkin modestly states that the set "consists of
twenty-nine volumes of facsimiles of the first American editions of
Mark Twain's works. . . ."  Unless one interprets this statement to
mean that the set comprises _all_ American first editions of Mark
Twain's books, it is demonstrably correct: all OMT volumes are made
from American first edition books (except _Chapters from My
Autobiography_, which is copied from magazines).

Why, however, are only _American_ first editions are used? After
all, several of Mark Twain's books--including _Huckleberry Finn_
and _Tom Sawyer_--were first published outside the United States.
Furthermore, several foreign editions had no corresponding American
editions.

A second qualification on the scope of the OMT is stated in
Fishkin's foreword: the set "reproduces the first American editions
of Mark Twain's books published during his lifetime" (p. xiv in
every volume).  This limitation was presumably added both to limit
the size of the set and to give it a focus, namely, books over
which Mark Twain himself exercised some control.  It thus appears
that an underlying rationale behind the OMT was to reproduce the
books Mark Twain himself published.  Restricting the OMT to
editions published during Mark Twain's lifetime is a more
significant limitation than some people might suspect.  More of
Mark Twain's published writings appeared in book form after he died
than before.

It should be noted, incidentally, that one OMT volume was
originally published about three months _after_ Mark Twain died:
_Mark Twain's Speeches_, which his literary executor, Albert
Bigelow Paine, published in July 1910.  Technically, this volume
falls outside the OMT's chronological parameters, but Fishkin
points out that since Mark Twain himself may have participated in
the book's preparation, a special case can be made for including
it.

OMISSIONS

A more troublesome matter is what has been left out of the set.  As
Fishkin correctly points out in a footnote to her foreword
(p. xxviii in all volumes), Mark Twain "constantly recycled and
repackaged previously published works in his collections of short
pieces," causing considerable duplication in his published
collections.

Several American first editions published during Mark Twain's time
are not part of the OMT: _Mark Twain's Number One_ (1874), _A True
Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime_ (1877), _Punch, Brothers,
Punch!_ (1878), _My Debut as a Literary Person_ (1903), and
_Editorial Wild Oats_ (1905).  Most--but not all--of the contents
of these books are in other OMT volumes, so the set suffers little
by their absence.  However, it is important to be aware that the
texts of many individual stories and essays varied among editions.
So far I have commented only on material published in _books_
during Mark Twain's lifetime.  An immense amount of material that
he published in newspapers and magazines was not reprinted in books
until long after he died, and that process is still going on--as
evidenced by recent publication of a collection of his _Buffalo
Express_ writings.

A rough inventory of all books containing _different_ published
Mark Twain writings would include all the titles used for the OMT,
plus collections of letters, notebooks, journalism, and
posthumously collected writings.  Even leaving out pamphlet-sized
items, the list runs to around ninety books, with little
duplication among them.  In other words, the 29 OMT volumes account
for roughly only a third of all Mark Twain books published.
Moreover, there remains a considerable amount of Mark Twain
material that still hasn't been published in book form.  For
example, the Mark Twain Project projects a total of 22 volumes of
letters (including five volumes already published) and another
half-dozen volumes or so of short works, many of which haven't been
published in books before.  Throw in the still-to-be published
notebooks, autobiographical manuscripts, and other odds and ends,
and the OMT volumes look to represent about a _quarter_ of the
total.

Less understandable than the omission of minor collections is the
omission of several other book titles--all minor works, but each
with its own points of interest.  For example, _Mark Twain's
(Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance_ (1871) would have been
a welcome addition to the set, even though the texts of its two
pieces appear in other OMT volumes (the first, as "Burlesque
Biography," in _The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories_, and the
latter, as "Medieval Romance," in _Sketches New and Old_).  A chief
value of facsimile reprint editions is the inclusion of
illustrations that are generally omitted in other editions.  The
burlesque autobiography volume was distinguished by its unusual
illustrations, which are rarely seen together.  That little book
might easily have been combined with another volume.

Two other omissions are also to be regretted: _A Dog's Tale_ (1904)
and _A Horse's Tale_ (1906).  The former appears in _The $30,000
Bequest_ volume, but without W. T. Smedley's illustrations.  The
latter does not appear anywhere in the OMT.  (It was reprinted in
the collection titled _The Mysterious Stranger_ in 1922.)  Both
stories may be sentimental drivel, but they merit a place among
Mark Twain's works because they were important to him.  The little
books in which the stories were originally published could easily
have been combined into a single volume--as the diaries of Adam and
Eve were.  In fact, they could have been combined with a third
small Harper's book from the same period--_The Jumping Frog_, whose
1903 edition had delightful new illustrations by Fred Strothman.
(Dover published a facsimile of that book in 1971.)  I would also
like to have seen Mark Twain's essay "English As She Is Taught"
(published as a 30-page booklet in 1900) somewhere in the OMT.

Incidentally, despite the omission of several story and essay
collections, there is some redundancy in the set.  For example,
many short pieces in _The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County_ are also in _Sketches, New and Old_, and _Double-Barrelled
Detective Story_ is in both _The Stolen White Elephant_ and _The
$30,000 Bequest_.

Any criticisms leveled at the _Oxford Mark Twain_ are ultimately
meaningless.  It's not perfect, but so what?  Measured against its
bargain price, its shortcomings are trivial and do not lessen the
value of the high-quality facsimile pages the set puts in our
hands.  Anyone with a serious interest in Mark Twain should own the
set.  Even if you already have a complete set of first editions and
Mark Twain Project editions, you should own it.