From: Stephen Railton [log in to unmask]

To: The Mark Twain Forum

Dear Fellow Forum Members --

    We've finally finished hooking all the 150 or so reviews of Mark Twain's
books and lecture performances that are archived in *Mark Twain in His
Times* into the site's search engine.  They're searchable in several ways,
which should make the material a lot easier to use.  I'd like to ask you for
two kinds of help.

    First, if you get a chance, please try out the search feature, and let
me know if any of it isn't working, or if there are revisions we could make
to make the feature more helpful.

    Second, I'd love your help building up the data base.  If you have
reviews we don't have, or if Mark Twain lectured in your town and you know
how to get copies of any local reviews, please consider sending them to me
(addresses follow) so we can add them in.  You can send me electronic
versions or hard copy -- either way, I'll see that all such contributions
get added and that all contributors get credit.  One of the goals I began
the site with was building up as full a collection of contemporary reviews
as possible, and making it electronically searchable, for the sake of
students of Twain at all levels.  We've made a start, but it would be great
to have help from the Forum to go further.

     The same holds for obituaries of Mark Twain.  We currently have 38,
from around the country, but it would be great to have more, to see as
fully as possible how the various parts of the country summed up his
achievement and meaning to the nation.  If you could send an obituary
notice from your part of the world, we'll get it into the site and onto the
map.

Thanks,

Stephen Railton

site address: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton