My first experience with Letters from the Earth was as a college student in
the 1960's.
In my youth, I had read Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, &
Connecticut Yankee ---but it was when I read Letters... that I realized that
Twain was a genius at social commentary.

As a naive Freshman, I was a religious skeptic. Having lived a very
sheltered life, I thought I was a freak ---everyone else I knew was deeply
religious. Reading Letters may have been the first time that I thought I had
found someone who though as I did, but who was able to express himself so
much more eloquently than I ever could. He could make us all realize what
asses mankind can be, yet make us laugh at ourselves.

Carol Peiffer