The current issue of the London Review of Books has a piece on MT by Harold Beaver. The "America's Homer" claim is on the cover! It is not, alas, a particularly deep and/or interesting piece on Twain, unfortunately. However, in the spirit of the reference to Wile E. Coyote in Shelley Fisher Fishkin's new book, here is a direct quote from p. 7-- "He [MT] has been called . . . our Homer, our Tolstoy, our Shakespeare, our Rabelais." There is no footnote for these citations, however. But the book has lots of 1st person sort of stuff --like Howells (the Lincoln of our literature; My MT) or the book by Louis Budd, "Our MT". The use of 1st person interests me lately as I think through some of the issues related to such reified "we" constructions in Twain criticism; and again (hint, hint) I would be interested in hearing any thoughts on these issues from LIST members. Dr. Harold K. Bush Konan International Exchange Center Konan University, 8-9-1 Okamoto Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658, JAPAN