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John Bird <[log in to unmask]>
Wed, 5 Feb 1997 08:52:30 -0500
TEXT/PLAIN (31 lines)
I wouldn't say the CD-ROM "Twain's World" is useless at all.  Flawed, yes,
but
useful in many ways.

In some cases, they could have chosen more authoritative texts, and the
illustrations are truly wretched--with all those great originals, why they
had
to go with these lame cartoon is beyond me.  And the quizzes are good only
for
kids, I guess.

But there are several pluses.  First, to me, is the ability to do word
searches.
 There's no concordance to Mark Twain, but with this CD, you can do a decent
search.  I recently used it on a paper about racial language in _Huck Finn_.
The word search yielded instant results, and showed me some things I might
not
have otherwise seen.  Also, it includes a number of minor works that are a
little hard to find.  Finally, I've used it when I write papers and use
large
chunks of text to save typing:  I highlight a passage, save it to the
clipboard,
then import into my paper.

I wish it were more scholarly, but for the price, I think it's worth it.  At
least we work on Mark Twain!  There's no Howells or James World, I notice.

There's a fuller review in the Mark Twain Circular from a year or two ago;
I'm
sure somebody has the reference.

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