"Mark Twain's first book, /The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras  
County, and Other Sketches/, published in 1867 in both the United States  
and Great Britain and followed shortly by Canadian and Australian  
editions, immediately captured an international audience with its droll  
and colloquial title story. During these earliest years as a free-lance  
writer and traveling correspondent, Twain turned out many "sketches" and  
anecdotal [xxix] short stories in successive editions that rapidly won him  
popularity among Anglo-American readers. At least eleven American and  
Canadian editions and twenty-six British editions appeared before 1880. By  
1889 these collections multiplied to some seventy-three editions since  
1867, certainly among the best-sellers of that period. Their popularity  
spread to the Continent with translations into Danish, German, and Swedish  
in 1874, followed by nine editions in each of these languages by 1889.  
Twain's stories were further translated into Polish in 1881 and Russian in  
1888."

Robert M. Rodney. /Mark Twain International: A Bibliography and  
Interpretation of his Worldwide Popularity/. Westport Conn: Greenwood  
Press, 1982: xxviii-xxix.


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Holger Kersten
Magdeburg, Germany