R. Kent Rasmussen is the holder of a UCLA doctorate in history and a retired reference-book editor. He has long been recognized as a leading world authority on Mark Twain, about whom he has published fourteen books. Those volumes include such now-standard reference works as Mark Twain A toZ; its expanded revision, Critical Companion to Mark Twain; and The Quotable Mark Twain. Books that he has edited include four volumes of critical essays; several collections of Mark Twain’s own writings, including the Penguin Classics edition of Autobiographical Writings, Mark Twain for Dog Lovers, and Mark Twain’s Tales of the Macabre & Mysterious—the latter two both Lyons Press publication. He lives in Thousand Oaks, California and is now working on his sixteenth Mark Twain book.