With this volume, The Mark Twain Annual offers the second special issue in its history, “Mark Twain and the West: Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Roughing It.” Although not all the essays in this volume directly comment on that book, they all capture some aspect of the wide-open (and at times eyes wide shut) spirit of Twain’s journey to the “Far West.” And Bruce Michelson’s opening essay, a revised version of his riveting and astute keynote address from the October 2021 Quarry Farm Symposium, captures in pure Michelsonian style Twain’s freewheeling rendering of his adventures west of the mighty river. It is followed by fourteen revised symposium talks. Twain claimed that “a good deal of information” was in Roughing It and lamented that he would give “worlds if he could retain [his] facts” and that ultimately he “leak[ed] wisdom.” The authors herein add to that information, take him to...

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