"Mark Twain's first book, /The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches/, published in 1867 in both the United States and Great Britain and followed shortly by Canadian and Australian editions, immediately captured an international audience with its droll and colloquial title story. During these earliest years as a free-lance writer and traveling correspondent, Twain turned out many "sketches" and anecdotal [xxix] short stories in successive editions that rapidly won him popularity among Anglo-American readers. At least eleven American and Canadian editions and twenty-six British editions appeared before 1880. By 1889 these collections multiplied to some seventy-three editions since 1867, certainly among the best-sellers of that period. Their popularity spread to the Continent with translations into Danish, German, and Swedish in 1874, followed by nine editions in each of these languages by 1889. Twain's stories were further translated into Polish in 1881 and Russian in 1888." Robert M. Rodney. /Mark Twain International: A Bibliography and Interpretation of his Worldwide Popularity/. Westport Conn: Greenwood Press, 1982: xxviii-xxix. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Holger Kersten Magdeburg, Germany