I have found that students enjoy reading _No. 44, The Mysterious
Stranger_, the only version of the tale that can arguably be called
complete.  In particular, my students have been fascinated by Twain's
preoccupation with extraordinary states of mind and his fictive
exploration of the mind's unusual abilities.  They romp along with
Twain as he zigzags through a series of mental labyrinths and to a
conclusion that students, for the most part, find fitting and
satisfying.  After reading _No. 44, students who have read the
earlier bastardized version are astonished at the
difference they find in tone and overall effect, from a darker and
bleaker vision recognized in the earlier version to
the playful and comically disruptive view that colors _No. 44_.
Of course, my own bias may partially direct them here.  Nonetheless,
students respond favorably--sometimes wildly--to Twain's excursion
into doubleness, duplicates, and dream selves and the breeziness of
the roaming printer, Doangivadam, as well as the hilarious treatment
 of Mary Baker Eddy; they even find the penultimate
chapter of _No. 44_, with its eerie recall of history's notables
strangely moving.  Such material is missing from the earlier version
by Paine and Duneka.  Let's not cheat readers or Twain; ignore the
fraud, attend to the rewardingly authentic.
                                --Jason G. Horn

 Division of Humanities
 Gordon College
 Barnesville, Georgia 30204
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