Dear Michael, Interestingly, it wasn't just "major" writers whom Twain sometimes criticized; he also developed a voracious appetite for truly minor authors. I sketched out some of his proclivities in "'I Kind of Love Small Game': Mark Twain's Library of Literary Hogwash," AMERICAN LITERARY REALISM 9 (Winter 1976): 64-76. Twain's friends even starting sending him examples of badly written books, knowing his fondness for this stuff and soliciting his explosions of indignation. Regards, Alan Alan Gribben Auburn University Montgomery