“Americans have cherished and magnified versions of an idealized Mark Twain. We admire and are amused by the celebrity, who sold his pseudonym and his carefully composed face to advertise pipe tobacco, cigarettes, whiskey, and postcards. The extent to which the received images are authentic or inauthentic is, however, in doubt. Common images must be modified when we examine the thoughts and emotions important to the mind and heart of Samuel L. Clemens, the private man.”—from the Introduction