Mark Twain's Audience

McParland studies readership in an attempt to place Twain in terms of the perceptions and responses of reading ‘circles,’ social strata, and regional audiences. McParland references Rasmussen and other studies, and he cites a number of letters to Twain from his readers in the collection of the Mark Twain Papers at Berkeley. In so doing, he creates a patchwork of responses reflecting readers’ sense of Twain as a person and the meaning to them of his works and career… .the text is clear and the documents provide interesting reading… .Overall, the information McParland offers will stimulate thought about Twain’s reception. Chapters on marketing subscription books, childhood reading, the global audience, and responses to Twain’s place in literature from 1910 through 1960 read smoothly and should hold a reader’s interest. Summing Up: Recommended … Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. * CHOICE *This is more than a study in literary influence. Robert McParland has driven a core sample deep into the history of American culture, revealing the responses that Mark Twain evoked in readers of all social and ethnic backgrounds. – Jonathan Rose, Drew University

Robert McParland is associate professor of English at Felician College in New Jersey.