BRIEFLY NOTED:

 _Mark Twain's Notebooks: Journals, Letters, Observations, Wit,
Wisdom, and Doodles_. Edited by Carlo DeVito. Black Dog & Leventhal,
2015. Pp. 333. Paperback. ISBN 978-1-57912-997-2. $19.95.


This somewhat misleadingly titled book is a seemingly random
collection of Mark Twain's quotations, short letters, and doodles,
along with extracts from longer works, stitched together with a spare
narrative and lavish illustrations. It is an attractive book but
suffers from inadequate vetting. Its factual and copyediting errors
are too numerous to list in a brief notice so a sampling must suffice.
Susy Clemens, for example, is called "Suzy" in one place and Clara
Clemens is called "Sara." A famous faked photograph showing Mark Twain
sitting in a South African cart, (adapted from the frontispiece of
_Following the Equator_) is presented as authentic. Several Mark Twain
works are misdated. Mark Twain and Bret Harte's play "Ah Sin!" is
mistitled as "Oh Sin!" The 3-volume edition of the Mark Twain's
notebooks from the 1970s is mistakenly described as "the complete and
definitive edition of all his surviving notebooks." Kevin Mac Donnell
of Austin, Texas, is incorrectly said to be connected to the
University of Virginia library. This list could go on.


DeVito's text and bibliography rely mainly on public domain sources
rather than recent scholarship. Albert Bigelow Paine's 1912 biography
of Mark Twain appears to be DeVito's main source of biographical
information, and DeVito frequently draws on Paine's _Mark Twain's
Autobiography_ (1924) rather than the recent more accurate texts from
the Mark Twain Project. DeVito also draws on Paine's notoriously
unreliable 1917 edition of Mark Twain letters, although carefully
edited texts are available in modern editions and on the Mark Twain
Project's online site.


The book features eye-catching illustrations, but some of their
captions cannot be trusted. For example, a photo that DeVito
represents as a picture of Mark Twain's Hartford home shows the wrong
house (it may have been copied from the discredited book _Mark Twain's
America_ by Harry Katz and the Library of Congress). Sources are given
for only part of the illustrations, and some of the unsourced
illustrations appear to have been lifted from online sites. The book's
small size--approximately 8 1/2 by 6 inches--renders many
illustrations too small to make out details. The book is presumably
aimed at the casual gift-buying consumers, not readers with a serious
interest in Mark Twain. In sum, the book duplicates many existing
errors, while contributing a raft of new ones into the printed record
and is perhaps better suited for the bathroom than a coffee table.