(1835-1910) American humorist and novelist, captured a world audience with stories of boyhood adventure and with commentaiy on man's shortcomings that is humorous even while it probes, often bitterly, the roots of human behavior. He collected miscellaneous writings into Sketches New and Old (1875) and tried to fit Colonel Sellers into a new book, which finally materialized years later as The American Claimant (1891). Meanwhile Mark Twain's account of steamboating experiences for the Atlantic Mon ...