This Odyssey of the Mississippi was published by a new firm, in which the author was a chief partner, just as Sir Walter Scott had been an associate of Ballantyne and Constable. There was at first a period of prosperity in which the house issued the _Personal Memoirs_ of Grant, giving his widow checks for $350,000 in 1886, and in which Mark Twain himself published _A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court_, a volume of _Merry Tales_, and a story called _The American Claimant_, wherein “Colonel Sellers” reappears. Then there came a succession of hard years; and at last the publishing house in which Mark Twain was a partner failed, as the publishing house in which Walter Scott was a partner had formerly failed. The author of _Huckleberry Finn_ at sixty found himself suddenly saddled with a load of debt, just as the author of _Waverley_ had been burdened full threescore years earlier; and Mark Twain stood up stoutly under it, as Scott had done before him. More fortunate than the Scotchman, the American has lived to pay the debt in full. Since the disheartening crash came, he has given to the public a third Mississippi River tale, _Pudd’nhead Wilson_, issued in 1894; and a third historical novel _Joan of Arc_, a reverent and sympathetic study of the bravest figure in all French history, printed anonymously in _Harper’s Magazine_ and then in a volume acknowledged by the author in 1896. As one of the results of a lecturing tour around the world he prepared another volume of travels, _Following the Equator_, published toward the end of 1897. Mention must also be made of a fantastic tale called _Tom Sawyer Abroad_, sent forth in 1894, of a volume of sketches, _The Million Pound Bank-Note_, assembled in 1893, and also of a collection of literary essays, _How to Tell a Story_, published in 1897. This is but the barest outline of Mark Twain’s life--such a brief summary as we must have before us if we wish to consider the conditions under which the author has developed and the stages of his growth. It will serve, however, to show how various have been his forms of activity--printer, pilot, miner, journalist, traveler, lecturer, novelist, publisher--and to suggest the width of his experience of life. II