I'll add my encomiums to Hal Bush's wonderful review of Pete Messent's
superb Mark Twain & Male Friendship. Pete breaks ground in this area of
study with such clarity of writing and insight that his arguments appear
obvious and overwhelming -- after I'd read them. (At the Mark Twain House,
when people ask about MT's religion, I keep to hand a copy of Pete's
December 2003 essay in Nineteenth-Century Literature, "Mark Twain, Joseph
Twichell and Religion," which for me says more in its few pages than reams
of other stuff written on the topic.)

Incidentally, in my capacity as MT House publicist, I was asked to supply
some photos last November to a British popular magazine, BBC Knowledge, that
was working on "a Mark Twain article." When the copy of the magazine arrived
yesterday, it featured an irresistible cover story about the peculiar
mixture of love and contempt TWain had for America. This was eloquently
explicated for the general Brit reader by the author,  one P. Messent.

Steve Courtney