«The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.»

How effectively Mark Twain loosed the lightning of his pen is attested by the mass and variety of critical interpretation that has surrounded his work in recent decades.

The essays in this volume mirror the changing moods of the United States literary climate, from the search for the «usable past» of the 1920s, through the social realism of the ’30s, to the psychological symbolism of the ’40s and ’50s.

Today we see Mark Twain more clearly, as the able teller of tall tales who used a shrewd pretense of illiteracy with resounding effect-artful in his artlessness, penetrating in his apparent spontaneity and humorous exaggeration, he pierced to the social and moral core of nineteenth century America.

Some of the essays included are:
Mark Twain’s Humor VAN WYCK BROOKS
The Symbols of Despair BERNARD DE VOTO
As Free as Any Cretur LESLIE FIEDLER
Huck and Oliver W. H. AUDEN