| Mark Twain reprinted fifteen sketches from the Buffalo Express in his 1875 subscription volume entitled Sketches, New and Old, and eighteen were printed in the Galaxy around the time of their appearance in the Express. Since that time, "Journalism in Tennessee," "Capitoline Venus," "A Ghost Story," "A Curious Dream," and a few others have been anthologized, most recently in Louis J. Budd's Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays (2 vols., 1991). However, except for their original newspaper printing, the signed sketches have yet to be published in their entirety as a volume. This study is a critical edition of the signed sketches, with annotations, editorial notes, a complete list of emendations, and introduction. The study of the Express sketches yields additional source material for Twain's later novel, Roughing It, gleaned from the "Around the World" series, as well as insights into his use of Southwestern humor, the tall tale and burlesque, his comments on the sensational journalism of his time, and his bifurcated thoughts on the hoax as literary humor. |
