COLD WATER ON THE MARK TWAIN CENTENNIAL.

COLD WATER ON THE MARK TWAIN CENTENNIAL. Today is the centennial of Mark Twain’s death. The local Connecticut papers have celebrated the event with articles. The weekend Financial Times (April 17/18) carried a book review by John Sutherland of a new biography of Twain by John Loving. The review and the book both question Twain’s standing as America’s greatest writer. Sutherland says that Loving’s book focuses on “one large and troubling question. How, [Loving] asks, can a writer have achieved such eminence as Twain’s with such a small number of incontrovertibly great works?” Sutherland contrasts Twain with Dickens, saying that “Dickens published 12 books, any one of which can be argued to vindicate his status as Britain’s greatest.” Twain, says Sutherland, wrote only one great book: HUCKLEBERRY FINN.