The current issue of the London Review of Books has a piece
on MT by Harold Beaver.  The "America's Homer" claim is
on the cover!

It is not, alas, a particularly deep and/or interesting piece on Twain,
unfortunately.  However, in the spirit of the reference to Wile E. Coyote
in Shelley Fisher Fishkin's new book,  here is a direct quote from p. 7--
"He [MT] has been called . . . our Homer, our Tolstoy, our Shakespeare, our
Rabelais."  There is no footnote for these citations, however.  But the
book has lots of 1st person sort of stuff --like Howells (the Lincoln of
our literature;  My MT) or the book by Louis Budd, "Our MT".
The use of 1st person interests me lately as I think through some of the
issues related to such reified "we" constructions in Twain criticism;  and
again (hint, hint) I would be interested in hearing any thoughts on these
issues from LIST members.

Dr. Harold K. Bush
Konan International Exchange Center
Konan University, 8-9-1 Okamoto
Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658, JAPAN