Misadventures in cyberspace bring me to this discussion a day late and
no doubt a dollar short, but there is that marvelous Twain letter to
Crane, dated January 20, 1887, in which Twain suggests what kids ought
to read and in so doing, names a dozen of his favorite books...

Macaulay, Plutarch, Grant's Memoirs, Robinson Crusoe, Arabian Nights and
Tennyson; Carlyle on the French Revolution, Browning, Mallory's King
Arthur, Parkman's Histories, Boswell's Johnson, Jowett's Plato and of
course, Shakespeare.

How they influenced Twain's work, if at all, someone on this list,
certainly, can explain...

Cordially,
Sara