Glad you asked that. It is a good and fair question. Almost all biographies before WWII, let alone WWI, inevitably are "iced out' as major biographies, no matter who the subject is. New materials, letters, journals, unpublished writings, archives, and so on, provide much more information as time goes on. Henderson had no access to probably 95% of the vast wealth of materials that the Bancroft Library at Berkeley has available to scholars. Also, methods of literary and historical study, not to mention just our contemporary ways of looking at life and culture, are drastically different from 1910. Nevertheless, we can learn a lot from older biographies. As a matter of fact, I learned a lot from Henderson's book and was delighted to discover it. To give one glaring example that is near and dear to my own heart, among other things, Henderson's volume has a very good overview of Twain's views of Christianity and the religious life that many biographers have either overlooked or misread (IMHO). In addition, these older bios are often rich in anecdote and good old-fashioned story-telling. An excellent example of this are 19th-century biographies of Lincoln, which are still great reading. Importantly, they also vary wildly from author to author--which is another point about getting iced out. Older bios tend to be much more hagiographic. Not always (see Van Wyck Brooks). Henderson tells some good stories. He interviewed and corresponded with many living people who knew Mark Twain personally. Not to mention the plain and simple fact that he actually talked to Twain himself! To the best of my knowledge, no member of this Twain-LIST can say that! Dr. Harold K. Bush, Jr., Associate Professor Saint Louis University