It's worth recalling that, from the viewpoint of the general reader, Jefferson wrote only one book--his Notes on the State of Virginia. I should imagine that any other "works" by him likely to appear in a home library of Twain's day might be a few speeches, letters or other papers in collections of classic American documents. There may well be Jeffersonian influence in some of Clemens' thoughts on slavery and especially his thoughts on the tendency of slavery to make a brute of the master. Passages about slavery in Pudd'nhead Wilson, the Autobiography, and Following the Equator have the same flavor as some of Jefferson's thoughts in the "Notes." I apologize for being too lazy to check my quote, but . . . One sentence, in Puddn'head Wilson (or possibly the Autobiography?) is a virtual paraphrase of a line in Notes on the State of Virginia: Twain says (in effect) 'wasn't it natural for a slave to snitch hams from the smokehouse considering that the master had stolen his freedom?' In "Notes," Jefferson says the same thing in more legalistic language. To me, these echoes don't necessarily prove that Sam had read Tom. They were surely the thoughts of many troubled, intelligent Southerners over the generations. If I were seriously interested in possible connections between Jefferson and Twain, and Twain's possible responses to the place of Jefferson in American history & myth, I would focus on Pudd'nhead Wilson: --For what it shows of the hypocrisies of slavery and what slavery could do to masters. --For the treatment of the miscegenation theme in the light of the endless gossip about Jefferson and "Black Sally," as well as many another Southern account of miscegenation. [To digress: I've often wondered how much Faulkner had Pudd'nhead Wilson in mind when he wrote, say, the Ike McCaslin stories.] --For the harshness or near despair of what Twain seems to be saying about 'the American Dream' vs. American historical realities; for example, the barb beneath the joke in that final epigraph: "It was wonderful to find America. But it would have been more wonderful to miss it." --For the satire of the "First Families of Virginia." Mark Coburn