Camy: I'm not certain whether Twain ever heard Dickens lecture more than once, but the passage below describes his reaction to an appearance at Steinway Hall in NYC, in December of 1867: "...I called at the St. Nicholas Hotel to see my Quaker City Excursion shipmate, Charley Langdon, and was introduced to a sweet and timid and lovely young girl, his sister. [Livy] The family went to the Dickens reading and I accompanied them... Mr. Dickens read scenes from his printed books. From my distance he was a small and slender figure, rather fancifully dressed, and striking and picturesque in appearance. He wore a black velvet coat with a large and glaring red flower in the buttonhole. He stood under a red upholstered shed behind whose slant was a row of strong lights -- just such an arrangement as artists used to concentrate a strong light upon a great picture.... He read with great force and animation, in the lively passages, and with stirring effect. It will be understood that he did not merely read but also acted. His reading of the storm scene in which Steerforth lost his life [fr. David Copperfield] was so vivid and so full of energetic action that his house was carried off its feet, so to speak." He goes on to mention that Authors Readings became popular because of Dickens, but then died out. Others were not as successful or perhaps adroit enough to sustain the effect that Dickens had mastered. The citation above comes from Charles Neider's edition of "The Autobigraphy of Mark Twain," Perennial Library, Harper & Row, NY, 1975, pp. 190-1. So, I suppose Dickens was a hit with Clemens. But not as big a hit as the young lady he accompanied. The evening made the fortune of his life, as he would describe it. Those "rose colored- glasses", recalled some forty years later, still give us a good look at what must have been a magical night. Regards, Roger Durrett