MARK TWAIN'S TRAVELS WITH MR. BROWN

This is definitely a Mark Twain item of hitherto uncollected sketches. It consists of 26 letters written for a California newspaper in the first half of 1867 -- preceding his visit to Europe which is familiar to all in Innocents Abroad. The most interesting part, perhaps, is that section that gives a picture of life in New York in those days, -- of places to live, travel round and about New York, of Barnum, of weather, of fashions, of ministers and their congregations. Typical Mark Twain, with his enthusiasms and his prejudices, undistilled, and throughout his alter ego serves as a foil.