Cox, James M., "The Ironic Stranger," in Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor, Princeton University Press, 1966, pp. 222—46.

Cox considers this novel's place in Twain's long career and finds it to be the point at which he started entering the final, worst stage of his writing life.

Davis, Sara de Saussure, and Philip D. Beidler, eds, The Mythologizing of Mark Twain, University of Alabama Press, 1984.

This book is a compilation of essays by and about Twain, charting the growth of his reputation.

Michelson, Bruce, "The Quarrel with Romance," in Mark Twain on the Loose: A Comic Writer and the American Self, University of Massachusetts Press, 1995, pp. 95—171.

This long chapter from Michelson's excellent examination of Twain's career looks at the American Romantic tradition and Twain's relationship to it.

Robinson, Douglas, "Revising the American Dream: A Connecticut Yankee," in Mark Twain, edited by Harold Bloom, Modern...