"Most people easily picture Twain's long white handlebar moustache and can practically hear his riverman's drawl. Readers know he's Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and he's Mark Twain, and they've painted fences right alongside Tom Sawyer. Any number of young men have had crushes on Becky Thatcher, and any number of young women have laughed at Huck Finn's way of threading a needle. But none of Twain's eleven novels, nine travel books, and countless short stories and essays would have achieved their status had he not first paid attention himself: to everyone and everything that lived in his world."

-- from Amy Sterling Casil's Introduction