Peter Messent is Emeritus Professor of Modern AmericanLiterature at Nottingham University. He is the author of TheCrime Fiction Handbook (2012), the prize-winning MarkTwain and Male Friendship (2009), The Short Works ofMark Twain: A Critical Study (2001), Mark Twain (1997),Ernest Hemingway (1992), and New Readings of the AmericanNovel: Narrative Theory and its Application (1990). Louis J. Budd died after this book was first published,in 2011. He was James B. Duke Professor (Emeritus) of AmericanLiterature at Duke University, where he taught American Literaturefrom 1981 to 1991. He was also the author of Mark Twain:Social Philosopher (reissued 2001) and Our Mark Twain: TheMaking of his Public Personality (1983) and the editor ofMark Twain: The Contemporary Reviews (1999). He served asfounding president of the Mark Twain Circle of America