As some have already noticed, "The Privilege of the Grave" is just one of 24 previously unpublished short manuscripts by Mark Twain, all but two of which are in the Mark Twain Papers, to be published next April by HarperStudio as Who Is Mark Twain? Paine took notice of this essay in chapter 235 of the biography, pointing out that it referred specifically to "Interpreting the Deity," which Paine was the first to publish in What Is Man? (1917), pp. 265-74, subsequently reprinted in various places (e.g., Baender's What Is Man and Other Philosophical Writings (1973). The New Yorker reviewed all twenty-four pieces and picked "The Privilege of the Grave" for its December issue. According to HarperStudio's blog, 26th story (http://www.26thstory.com/blog/2008/12/page/4/) Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman at The New Yorker said this about the text before they published it: "We felt that the piece was both sharp and funny in its satire and timeless in its take on the notion of free speech in western culture. Coming at the end of a difficult election year, it seemed particularly prescient." If it seems odd that Mark Twain would be talking about stuff he didn't dare publish in 1905, consider that just one year later he began the final form of his autobiography, which also contained material he was unwilling to see published in his lifetime. And much of what DeVoto published and what the Mark Twain Papers have published in the 1960s was likewise not something he would publish while alive. The twenty-four pieces in Who Is Mark Twain? are part of roughly 50 or 60 short works in the Mark Twain Papers which have not yet appeared in the scholarly edition. I made sure the texts in HarperStudio's book are sound, even though they have no notes or textual apparatus to accompany them. Virtually all of these short works are familiar to scholars who have used the Papers over the years. This little book is just an attempt to give them a wider audience in advance of the scholarly edition, where their publication will certainly come sometime after the autobiography, due to issue (volume 1 only) in 2010. Cheers, Bob