The following is the first official book review to appear on the
Mark Twain Forum.  Your comments are welcomed.  Also, I'm thinking about
having regular book reviews on the Forum.  If you're interested in
contributing, please send a note directly to me.

Taylor Roberts
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_The Mark Twain Encyclopedia_.  Edited by J. R. LeMaster and James D.
     Wilson.  (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1249.)
     New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1993.  Pp. xxx, 848.
     Cloth, 7-1/4" x 10-1/4".  ISBN 0-8240-7212-X.

     Price $95.00 U.S., less 10% discount for subscribers to the Mark
     Twain Forum.  Order from Garland Publishing, Inc., 1000A Sherman
     Avenue, Hamden, CT 06514 USA, fax (203) 230-6273, telephone (203)
     281-4487, toll-free (800) 627-6273.

     The appearance of the _Mark Twain Encyclopedia_ has been anxiously
anticipated, and most readers should be pleased with it.  This book is a
handy guide to the basic and obscure facts of Twain's life and works,
and it is quite comprehensive, having about 740 alphabetically arranged
(and signed) entries.  The essays are generally thorough and reliable.
However, because there were dozens of contributors, the quality of
individual entries is uneven in the book as a whole.  Many articles are
excellent, but some are dated and incomplete.  It is surprising that
some of the latter were not smoothed out in the editing process, but
considering the book's large size and scope, and the time constraints
apparently faced by the editors, LeMaster and Wilson have done a
remarkable job.  Surely the main consideration in deciding whether to
buy the _MT Encyclopedia_ will not be its quality or usefulness, but its
price.

     As a reference book, most entries in the _MT Encyclopedia_ are
short (less than a page).  A meticulous, 33-page index facilitates
access to material within individual entries.  The entries deal with
topics large and small, and as diverse as "Crystal Palace Exhibition,"
"Interviews," "Scatology," "_Cosmopolitan_," "Miscegenation," and
"Halley's Comet."  An article on Twain's racial attitudes is deservedly
long, given the attention that this topic continues to receive.
Following each entry is a bibliography directing the reader to more
detailed information on the topic.  Although this arrangement has
resulted in considerable duplication of bibliographic entries throughout
the book, it is surely preferable to the alternative of having a
consolidated bibliography at the end, which would require constant
flipping of pages back and forth.

     Also included in the _MT Encyclopedia_ is a four-page chronology of
Twain's life, although it is not as inclusive as the one that appeared
recently in Budd's edition of Twain's stories.  By contrast, an appendix
presents branches of the Clemens genealogy in more detail than, e.g., a
similar section in _MT's Letters_.  The 180 authors who prepared entries
for the _MT Encyclopedia_ are listed with their contributions at the
front of the book.  The advisory board comprised such well-known Twain
scholars as Howard G. Baetzhold, Louis J. Budd, Everett Emerson, John C.
Gerber, Alan Gribben, Susan K. Harris, Hamlin Hill, E. Hudson Long, and
David E. E. Sloane.  The book appears to have been carefully proofread,
as there were no obvious typographical errors.

     Many entries examine characters in Twain's fiction, e.g., Colonel
Sherburn from _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_, Jack Halliday from "The
Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," and of course reappearing characters
like Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, Captain Stormfield, and
Colonel Sellers.  In addition to entries on Twain's novels, there are
many articles on his short writings.  In this respect, the _MT
Encyclopedia_ overlaps with Wilson's _Reader's Guide to the Short
Stories of MT_.  While the entries for individual stories in the
_Reader's Guide_ are slightly longer than the corresponding ones in the
_MT Encyclopedia_, the _Reader's Guide_ has the drawback that it
discusses only about 65 stories, virtually all of which are from
Neider's edition.  The _MT Encyclopedia_ improves this coverage
dramatically, since it includes entries on posthumously published
stories and fragments from, e.g., _What is Man? and other Philosophical
Writings_, _MT's Which Was the Dream? and Other Symbolic Writings of the
Later Years_, and _MT's Fables of Man_.  Indeed, the fact that these
writings have been regarded as important by the editors is suggested by
the presence of a two-page chronology of posthumous publications at the
beginning of the book, starting with _MT's Speeches_ (1910) and ending
with _MT's Letters_, vol. 2, and _MT's Own Autobiography_ (1990).  It is
not clear, however, why this chronology was not brought completely up to
date to include, e.g., _MT's Aquarium: The Samuel Clemens-Angelfish
Correspondence, 1905-1910_ and _MT's Letters_, vol. 3, especially since
these books are cited elsewhere in the _Encyclopedia_.

     There is a five-page entry on a subject that receives a lot of
attention on the Mark Twain Forum, "Media Interpretations of MT's Life
and Works."  Starting as early as 1909 with Thomas Edison's audio-visual
recordings of Twain, it lists adaptations of specific Twain works under
the subheadings "Movies and TV," "Biography," "Radio," "Filmstrip,"
"Musical Treatments," and "Audio Recordings (Spoken Word)."  (There is
also a related entry devoted solely to Twain's appearance in comics.)
Missing from this entry, however, is a survey of modern fiction in which
Twain or his creations appear as characters--although David Carkeet's
novel _I Been There Before_ is mentioned briefly in another entry.  The
"Media Interpretations" article is discriminating in identifying
adaptations that have attempted to capture the spirit of Twain's
original writings (e.g., the Great Amwell Company's PBS movies in the
1980s), but it could have been made yet more informative if it also
cited some specific misinterpretations of Twain's life and work.
Nevertheless, this entry consolidates information that is not otherwise
conveniently available.

     Another entry that is very good concerns the editions of Twain's
works, identifying his publishers at different periods of his life.  It
also lists the editions that are currently the most authoritative--the
ones prepared by the Mark Twain Project and published by the University
of California Press--and identifies the correspondences between the
editions in the inexpensive Mark Twain Library series and the more
heavily annotated volumes from which they are derived.  The article is
careful to draw attention to the fact that the first posthumous
publication of "The Mysterious Stranger" (1916) used a bowdlerized text,
and guides the reader instead to the definitive edition in the Mark
Twain Papers series.  In the case of _The Innocents Aborad_, which has
not yet appeared in the Works of Mark Twain series, the reader is
directed to the Library of America edition.  The entry concludes with a
list of facsimile reproductions of first editions and holograph
manuscripts, as well as editions of Twain's poetry.  Although this
article is only two-and-a-half pages long, it is fairly thorough and
should be invaluable to the general reader who is trying to evaluate and
make sense of the various editions available--a situation that can only
become more baffling in the next few years as electronic editions of
Twain's writings become available.

     Other valuable articles survey the institutions of modern Twain
scholarship, e.g., journals, conferences, the Mark Twain Circle of
America, the Mark Twain Papers, the Mark Twain Project, and the Elmira
College Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm.  Of course, the
details in these entries will probably become dated quickly.  There is
an entry on the Mark Twain Research Foundation, for example, that
suggests that this organization (and its newsletter, _The Twainian_) is
still going strong, when in fact it does not seem to have been effective
since the death of its executive secretary, Chester L. Davis, Sr., in
1987.

     The real value of the _MT Encyclopedia_ for individual readers can
surely only be established by frequent use over a long period.  It will
be discovered that some entries are more helpful than others.  We can
give the _MT Encyclopedia_ a couple of quick tests by checking if it
answers some of the queries that have been posted to the Mark Twain
Forum.  One recent message asked if anyone could cite examples of
Twain's alleged racist attitudes toward the Irish.  The _MT
Encyclopedia_'s entry on "Ireland, Irish, Irishmen" does indeed identify
the locations (by chapter) of some of Twain's unfavourable depictions of
the Irish.

     Another Forum subscriber has asked if anyone could explain why
Neider's text of "A Double-Barreled Detective Story" is interrupted in
chapter 4 by some letters to Twain concerning his absurd reference to a
"solitary esophagus [that] slept upon motionless wing," as well as a
letter by Twain to the Springfield _Republican_.  What is particularly
puzzling is that this material does not appear in the original serial
publication of the story in _Harper's Magazine_ (early 1902).  The entry
for this story in the _MT Encyclopedia_, although it is a page and a
half long, does not even mention the discrepant texts.  One must look
instead to Wilson's _Reader's Guide_ for an explanation, where the
variant versions of the story are described at the outset, and the
correspondence is identified as having been first inserted by Twain in
the version of the story that was published in book form by Harper and
Brothers later that year.  Twain's purpose, according to Macnaughton,
was to call "attention to the burlesque intention of both the specific
passage in question and the piece as a whole" (172-173).  The _MT
Encyclopedia_ was therefore of no help in answering this question,
except insofar as Wilson's _Reader's Guide_ was listed in the
bibliography.

     More generally, one criticism that can be levelled at the _MT
Encyclopedia_ is that some entries do not integrate the latest and most
accurate information available, despite the claim in the preface that
the book serves as "a review of the current status of Mark Twain
scholarship" (x).  For example, the "Lecturer" entry repeats the
anecdote in which Twain--after one of his performances of the 1884-85
lecture tour--is reported to have moaned to George Washington Cable that
he was allowing himself to be "a mere buffoon" and demeaning himself as
a writer.  The entry states that "these and other instances of self-
doubt attest that Twain's sense of platform mastery was only as strong
as his last performance, as ephemeral as the human voice itself."
However, a more balanced entry might have noted that the Cable anecdote
and Twain's alleged insecurity as a public speaker have been questioned,
e.g., by Budd, "Who's Been Demeaning Whom?".  This information is
important not only for the Twain specialist, but perhaps even more
important for the general reader who may not look beyond the _MT
Encyclopedia_.

     Another example is the entry on George Washington Cable, which
states that in Rochester in December 1884, "it was Cable who first
introduced Twain to the _Morte D'Arthur_; in so doing he became (in
Twain's words) 'the godfather' of _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court_ . . . ."  The entry on Sir Thomas Malory likewise implies that
Cable originally introduced Twain to the book; the mistake is especially
puzzling here, since the bibliography for this entry lists Gribben's
"The Master Hand of Old Malory," which shows that Twain was familiar
with the _Morte D'Arthur_ before 1884, i.e., before his reading tour
with Cable.  Another connection between Twain's life and fiction remains
unestablished in the entry on "Letter from the Recording Angel."  The
essay mentions Andrew Langdon as though he were merely a fictional
target of Twain's satire against hypocrisy, when in fact Langdon was
also the first cousin of Twain's wife, Olivia Clemens.  This oversight
is somewhat distressing in light of the book's preface, which states
that "because so much of Mark Twain's writing . . . reflects Samuel
Clemens's personal experience, particular attention has been given to
the delicate interstices between art and life, that is, between
imaginative reconstructions and their factual sources of inspiration"
(ix).

     There is an especially unimpressive article on Canada.  Its main
flaw is that it follows in structure and content (almost completely)
Stephen Leacock's "MT and Canada," an essay that is now almost sixty
years old, and which contains errors and omissions.  The entry in the
_Encyclopedia_ neglects to mention Twain's trips to Canada in 1884-85
and 1887, for example, nor does it mention Twain's correspondence with
Canadian novelist Bruce Weston Munro (see Karanovich et al.).  This
entry is not redeemed either by its bibliography.  Most surprisingly, it
does not include Gordon Roper's important article, "MT and His Canadian
Publishers."  This reference is also conspicuously absent from the
bibliography of the "Copyright" entry.  Here, then, one would have to
turn to, e.g., Tenney's _Reference Guide_ in order to find Roper's
article.  Similarly, the "Canada" bibliography lists James B. Pond's
_Eccentricity [sic] of Genius_ (which relates Pond's experiences as
manager for Twain's reading tours), but not _Overland With MT_, which
contains dozens of new photographs of the North American portion of
Twain's 1895-96 world tour, as well as a more authoritative text of
Pond's journal.

     The value of some entries (or parts of entries) is negligible.  The
article on Thomas Edison unfortunately does not go very far in showing
how Edison is connected with Twain's life and fiction.  It does not even
mention Edison's audio and visual recordings of Twain, although this
information can be found in another entry (mentioned above) via the
index.  The entry on "Correspondence (MT as Letter Writer)" is very
thorough and informative, but the second-last paragraph, which is nearly
half a page long, states the obvious: "That Mark Twain's letters
continue to merit publication and study is beyond question.  Samuel L.
Clemens arguably was and remains the most important writer yet produced
by the United States, an author whose significance was vast during his
lifetime and is still growing more than eighty years after his death."
It then goes on to list Twain's diverse occupations during his life.
This information perhaps would have been better kept in the entry
specifically on Clemens, or in the introduction, so that more space in
the body of the book could have been freed.

     And of course there are the small errors that inevitably creep into
a book as ambitious as the _MT Encyclopedia_.  For example, although
Kurt Vonnegut is mentioned in the "Legacy" article, he does not appear
in the index.  "Language" cites an item by Fatout that is not listed in
the bibliography.  The entry for publisher Francis (Frank) Bliss states
"dates unknown," yet Bliss's birth and death dates are readily available
in, e.g., _MT's Letters_, vol. 3, and _MT's Correspondence with Henry
Huttleston Rogers_; the latter is now over twenty years old.  The
article on "The Golden Arm" is careful to point out that "A Ghost Story"
is an alternate title for this tale (which Twain frequently told on the
platform), but the corresponding entry for "A Ghost Story" (a different
sketch that first appeared in the 1870 Buffalo _Express_ bearing the
same title), does not cross-refer to the "Golden Arm"; this matter,
though small, could be confusing to a reader who knows Twain's oral
folktale only by its title, "A Ghost Story."

     Many of the issues raised above are minor, but are meant to alert
the reader to the possibility that similar mistakes are present
elsewhere in the book.  Still, the good points of the _MT Encyclopedia_
far outweigh its bad points, and I would highly recommend this book to
fellow Twainians, as it contains a huge amount of information in a
compact, attractive, and sturdy format.  However, I would also recommend
that anyone researching Twain's life and writings not stop at the _MT
Encyclopedia_, but continue to check resources like Tenney's _MT: A
Reference Guide_ and its supplements, Gribben's _MT's Library: A
Reconstruction_, Wilson's _Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of MT_,
and the MT Papers series, among others.  This is because, unfortunately,
even if one assumes that the contributors to the _MT Encyclopedia_ have
fully explored these resources themselves, one cannot also assume that
they have all integrated their findings into their articles.
Nevertheless, the _MT Encyclopedia_ cannot be compared to any other
single book about MT, and it will be an invaluable resource for years to
come.

Reviewed by:

Taylor Roberts
Department of Linguistics
University of British Columbia

                            Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following persons for their comments on a draft of this
review: Kevin J. Bochynski, Beverly R. David, Michael J. Kiskis, Miriam
J. Shillingsburg, and Richard Tuerk.  None of them can be held
responsible for its contents.


                               Works Cited

Budd, Louis J.  "Who's Been Demeaning Whom?"  _MT Circular_ 1.9
     (September 1987): 1-2.
Carkeet, David.  _I Been There Before_.  New York: Harper and Row, 1985.
Gribben, Alan.  _MT's Library: A Reconstruction_.  Boston: G. K. Hall &
     Co., 1980.  2 vols.
---.  "The Master Hand of Old Malory: MT's Acquaintance with the _Morte
     D'Arthur_."  _English Language Notes_ 16 (1978): 32-40.
Karanovich, Nick, William Cagle, and Joel Silver, eds.  _MT: Selections
     from the Collection of Nick Karanovich_.  Bloomington: Lilly
     Library, 1991.
Leacock, Stephen.  "MT and Canada."  _Queen's Quarterly_ 42 (Spring
     1935): 68-81.
Macnaughton, William R.  _MT's Last Years as a Writer_.  Columbia:
     University of Missouri Press, 1979.
Pond, James B.  _Eccentricities of Genius: Memories of Famous Men and
     Women of the Platform and Stage_.  New York: G. W. Dillingham,
     1900.
---.  _Overland with MT: James B. Pond's Photographs and Journal of the
     North American Lecture Tour of 1895._  Eds. Alan Gribben and Nick
     Karanovich.  Elmira: Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm,
     1992.
Roper, Gordon.  "MT and His Canadian Publishers: A Second Look."
     _Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada_ 5 (1966): 30-89.
Tenney, Thomas A.  _MT: A Reference Guide_.  Boston: G. K. Hall & Co.,
     1977.
Twain, Mark.  _The Complete Short Stories of MT_.  Ed. Charles Neider.
     Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1957.
---.  _MT's Aquarium: The Samuel Clemens-Angelfish Correspondence, 1905-
     1910_.  Ed. John Cooley.  Athens: University of Georgia Press,
     1991.
---.  _MT's Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays_.  Ed. Louis
     J. Budd.  New York: Library of America, 1992.  2 vols.
---.  _MT's Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers, 1893-1909_.
     Ed. Lewis Leary.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.
---.  _MT's Letters_.  Eds. Victor Fischer and Michael B. Frank.  Vol.
     3.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
---.  _MT's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the "North American
     Review"_.  Ed. Michael J. Kiskis.  Madison: University of Wisconsin
     Press.
---.  _MT's Speeches_.  New York: Harper, 1910.
---.  _MT's Which Was the Dream? and Other Symbolic Writings of the
     Later Years_.  Ed. John S. Tuckey.  Berkeley: University of
     California Press, 1967.
---.  _What Is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings_.  Ed. Paul
     Baender.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
Wilson, James D.  _A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of MT_.
     Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987.