Several subscribers have expressed interest in book reviews on the
Mark Twain Forum.  This is a new feature here and on e-mail lists
generally, and so I appreciate your patience while I try to establish
procedures and guidelines for the reviews.

     In response to Travis Dawson's query about whether a book reviewer
needs to be qualified for the job or "merely a Twain lover": yes, in
addition to being a Twain lover, I (and surely the other Forum
subscribers) hope that a book reviewer will be qualified for the job.
However, being qualified for the job doesn't mean that you need to have
several degrees in literature and a long list of publications.

          Somehow I wouldn't think it a feather in any
          editor's/writer's/publisher's cap to be able to proclaim a
          review by an unheard of engineer.  Do I interpret the request
          correctly?

     No, I wouldn't assume this.  I'm an unheard-of linguist with no
professional interest in Twain, and yet I've noticed that Garland has
been happy to excerpt my review (June 1993) of the _MT Encyclopedia_ in
a couple of catalogues.  Some publishers are reluctant to send review
copies of books to electronic media like the Forum, but this reluctance
probably won't last much longer.  Although there are several print
publications devoted to Mark Twain, none of them have regular book
reviews.  Also, because the MT Forum is on the Internet, book notices
are distributed seconds after being prepared--not months or years, as
they are in conventional print media.  Publishers who continue to
overlook the utility of the Internet as a way of quickly reaching a
specialized audience do so at their own loss.

     Although the MT Forum is ostensibly intended primarily for Twain
scholars, I'm happy to encourage Twain enthusiasts to contribute to this
list, both in general discussions and in book reviews.  You're obviously
more likely to persuade me to send you a review copy of a book if you've
demonstrated in some way or another (e.g., in list discussions) that
you're knowledgeable about the aspect of Mark Twain and MT scholarship
that's relevant to the book that you want to review.  That is, I'm as
impressed by what you know about MT as by what you might or might not
have already published about him.  Even so, in the two calls for reviews
that I've posted recently, several highly qualified people have offered
their services, and unfortunately all but one of these offers have had
to be declined in each case.

     The best way for you to get to review a book for the Forum is
therefore not to wait until a general announcement is made concerning
one of the few unsolicited books that I receive from a publisher;
rather, if you know of a recently published or forthcoming book that
you'd like to review, just drop me a note with the following
information:

     1.   Author, title, and publisher of the book, and as much other
          bibliographical information as you can hunt down, e.g., from
          _Books in Print_.

     2.   Publisher's complete snail-mail address (and e-mail address,
          if available), which you can get from a directory of
          publishers in your library, e.g., from the relevant volume of
          _Books in Print_.

     3.   Your snail-mail address where the book should be sent.

     4.   An explanation of why you're interested in reviewing the book
          and/or in what respect you're especially qualified to do so.
          Again, it's more important that you be knowledgeable about the
          relevant aspect of Twain, not that you be famous.

Number 4 is optional information, but it'll be helpful to have sent it
if more than one person wants to review the same book.  I'll write to
the publisher and solicit a review copy for you, which--in return for
writing the review for the Forum--you get to keep.  The deadline for
posting your review would be two months from when you receive the book,
and up to three months if the book is especially large.

     Because this department of the Forum is meant to provide much-
needed information to subscribers, I should stress that book reviews
should tend more toward being of publishable quality rather than being
merely brief, casual comments, as one often finds in the regular e-mail
discussion.  To see what I have in mind, you might want to take a look
at the only official book review that has yet appeared here (my review
of the _MT Encyclopedia_).  Although that particular review could
definitely be improved, it will give you an idea of the kind of effort
and knowledge that should be brought to bear on a book review for the MT
Forum.  To get a copy, retrieve the June 1993 notebook file by sending a
message to either <[log in to unmask]> or <[log in to unmask]>
containing the single line:

GET TWAIN-L LOG9306

Please be careful to send this command to LISTSERV, not to TWAIN-L.

     If you're still interested in being a reviewer for the MT Forum,
just send me the information requested above whenever you see a book
that you'd like to review.  And feel free to send the titles of more
than one book, since there may be two reviewers wanting to review a
single book, and so if everyone has alternate choices, in the end
everyone should be happy.  The following books have already been
reviewed, or are in the process of being reviewed:

     LeMaster and Wilson (eds.), _MT Encyclopedia_ (Garland, 1993).
     Skandera-Trombley, _MT in the Company of Women_ (U of Pennsylvania,
          1994).
     Sloane (ed.), _MT's Humor_ (Garland, 1993).
     Sundquist (ed.), _MT: A Collection of Critical Essays_ (Prentice-
          Hall, 1994).
     Quirk, _Coming to Grips with Huckleberry Finn_ (U of Missouri,
          1993).

Finally, note that I've tried without success to secure review copies of
the following items, and so there's no point in asking to review any of
these.  However, if you deal with any of these publishers, your efforts
in encouraging them to send review copies would be appreciated:

     Fisher-Fishkin, _Was Huck Black?_ (Oxford, 1993).
     Smith and Branch (eds.), _Roughing It_ (U of California, 1993).
     _Twainian_, recently revived periodical (MT Research Foundation,
          1993).
     _Twain's World_, a CD-ROM (Bureau Development Inc., 1993).

     I hope this information is helpful.  If you have additional
questions, comments or suggestions about book reviews on the MT Forum,
please let me know.

Taylor Roberts
University of British Columbia