Mark Twain, American Humorist examines the ways that Mark Twain's reputation developed at home and abroad in the period between 1865 and 1882, years in which he went from a regional humorist to national and international fame. In the late 1860s, Mark Twain became the exemplar of a school of humor that was thought to be uniquely American. As he moved into more respectable venues in the 1870s, especially through the promotion of William Dean Howells in the Atlantic Monthly, Mark Twain muddied the hierarchical distinctions between class-appropriate leisure and burgeoning forms of mass entertainment, between uplifting humor and debased laughter, and between the literature of high culture and the passing whim of the merely popular.

The book is published by University of Missouri Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"Of real consequence to the study of Mark Twain, of American wit and humor, and of our literary and cultural history." (Mark Twain Annual)

"Among the two or three most important studies of Mark Twain and humor to have appeared in the last 50 years." (Mark Twain Journal)

"Makes novel contributions to the study of Twain, American humor, and periodicals." (American Periodicals)