At 08:54 AM 11/9/2007, you wrote:

Dear Robert:
         The confusion about the title actually
comes from the first edition, in which the
illustrator, Edward W. Kemble, used "The" in the
opening illustration to chapter 1, and the
publisher used it in the running heads. Here's
the explanatory note from the 2003 Mark Twain
Project edition (the note is hung on the chapter 1 illustration).

Kemble's use of ``The'' in the title here is
mistaken. The definite article was also
mistakenly used in the running heads of the first
edition, and in some of Webster and Company's
advertisements for the book. It appeared
throughout the English and Continental editions,
as well as the third and fourth American
editions, published in 1896 and 1899. Just after
completing the book manuscript, Clemens himself
quoted the title with the article in a letter to
James R. Osgood, but without it in one to Andrew
Chatto, both on 1 September 1883. And probably
he, rather than the editor or typesetter, used it
in the introductory note for the selections
published in the Century Magazine (SLC 1884b).
Still, there is little room for doubt that he
intended the book title to omit the article.
Kemble's design for the cover, which was among
the first illustrations reviewed and approved by
Webster and Clemens, omitted the article, as did
Clemens's holograph title page from the summer of
1883.  The printed title page of the first
edition, as well as the printed half-title, the
illustrated cover and the spine (and both front
and back of the prospectus) all agree with the
holograph title page in omitting the definite
article (SLC to Osgood, 1 Sept 83, WEU; SLC to
Chatto, 1 Sept 83, Uk, in Gates, 79; Webster to
SLC, 5 May 84, CU-MARK; SLC to Webster, 7 May 84,
NPV, in MTLP, 174; David and Sapirstein, 38).

Vic Fischer