I am posting this message on behalf of Abraham Kupersmith. ~~~~~ I want to the Mark Twain Forum for arranging to have my recent book, _Twain and Freud on the Human Race_, reviewed by Dr. Martin Zehr. However, there were a number of statements in Dr. Zehr's review to which I think it is important to respond. The introduction to _Twain and Freud_ identifies two primary foci for the book. The first involves exploring certain parallels in Twain's and Freud's personality constructs and the relationship of these to each writer's respective concepts of individual and group psychology. The reviewer clearly identifies this focus. However, I believe he does not accurately describe the position on this issue that is presented in the book. The second focus involves an examination of the relationship between Twain's theory of personality/human nature and his development of fictional characters, analyses of historical figures and depictions of group behavior in his fiction and nonfiction. This is stated on page 5 as "how Twain's system underlies his development of key characters and depictions of society in such novels as _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_, Pudd'nhead Wilson_, and _A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court_." This focus--an important thrust of the book--is consistent with the Twain scholar Linda Wagner-Martin's assertion that "In fact, one can read Mark Twain's fiction backward from the perspective of the issues in _What is Man?_ and discern a consistency that the sage of Hartford would have found unsurprising" (p. 7, quoted from Wagner-Martin's "Afterword" in the Oxford 1996 edition of _What is Man?_). However, this focus is largely unmentioned by the reviewer. With respect to the book's exploration of the parallels in Twain's and Freud's personality constructs, the book recognizes that each writer posits both inborn personality constructs and personality constructs derived from the social environment in which the individual is raised and functions. The significant differences in their concepts of the inborn personality constructs identified by the reviewer--Twain's temperament in contrast to Freud's id and stages of psychosexual development--are in fact acknowledged in the book (e.g. pp. 4, 11-14, 16-19). Nonetheless, despite these differences, both Twain and Freud present dynamic models of personality development. As the reviewer and my book both note, there are times when Twain's writing seems to focus exclusively on the environmental influences on human behavior. However, while the reviewer does make brief mention of Twain's concept of temperament, he then seems to dismiss Twain's thinking about the impact of inborn temperament on personality and behavior, as well as to misunderstand my treatment of that issue in the book (e.g. pp. 13, 14, 18). He appears to be under the impression that by stating that "Twain is not clear on whether temperament or training is primary in character development" (p. 58) and seeking to clarify the relationship between the two, I was hoping to establish the primacy of one or the other in Twain's thought. In fact, I assert in the book that it is the dynamic interplay between temperament and environment, including the relative strength of a particular temperament and the degree of consistency between that temperament and environmental expectations, that determines individual personality for Twain. In _Twain and Freud on the Human Race_, Freudian theory is used as a backdrop against which Twain's psychological thought can be reflected. Twain's work, like that of any other great writer, can be viewed from multiple perspectives. I believe that mine is one of the perspectives worthy of consideration. Sincerely, Abraham Kupersmith, Ph.D.