Carolyn, your message interests me in many ways. I, too, wrote my Master's Thesis on Mark Twain and the twin issue figured in. I slightly regret my use of "nemesis" in the title, but it was "Mark Twain's Nemesis: His brother, Henry." I saw in Twain's twin motif a reflection of his feeling for his brother. The only teaching I've done was while I was working on my MA and at a Teacher's College in Cameroons with the Peace Corps. When I came back to the US, I intended to get my PhD at UC Berkeley, home of the Mark Twain Papers because I figured I already had a start on my dissertation. I assumed I would eventually teach. I was diverted at Christmas time when my mother had a stroke. I'd already peeked into the first scrapbook hoping I'd find \articles on the explosion on the Pennsylvania and was thrilled to find plenty there. Much later, I realized the fellow who helped me was Fred Anderson, later to become the Editor at the MTP. I think it was he, when I left, who remarked that you didn't need a PhD to write a book. I had my teaching certificate for California and assumed I'd teach, but as it happens, I was diverted into other directions . I also haven't written that book. Sigh. However over a decade later, I went to the Mark Twain Papers, hoping to look further into my interest in Twain and his brother. What happened was that I noticed some other clippings in a scrapbook which I thought were written by Twain using a pseudonym I didn't recognize. Fred Anderson checked with two scholars who were experts in that part of his life and they said, he reported, to let me go for it. Fred gave me my only experience of having a mentor. He died during one of my absences from Berkeley and I still wish I could see whatever obituaries were written about him. Ooops. I remarked earlier to someone else that I'm in my anecdotage. So I'll stop here, but might pick up my story later. Look forward in reading more of your and others' comments on your interests. Arianne Laidlaw I