SOURCE: "'A Difficult Case': W. D. Howells's Impression of Mark Twain," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 31, No. 4, Fall, 1994, pp. 607-15.

In the following essay, Berkove assesses Mark Twain's influence on Howells's work.

There is little doubt today about the nature and extent of the influence of William Dean Howells on Mark Twain, but what of the reverse situation? Is it possible that Howells restricted a long and close friendship with Twain to a personal level and that he never assimilated the relationship to the point of expressing it in his art? "A Difficult Case" (1900) is evidence that Twain did leave his mark on both Howells's thought and art, deepening him and inspiring him to write one of his richest, most skillful, and most powerful short stories.

The story, all Howells scholars agree, has been largely overlooked. Yet, paradoxically, most modern commentators on the story praise it as...