Mark Twain at the Buffalo Express: Articles and Sketches by America's Favorite Humorist

by Mark Twain, Joseph B. McCullough, Janice McIntire-Strasburg

In August 1869 Mark Twain acquired part ownership of the Buffalo Express. During the following eighteen months, he wrote some of his best short pieces, humorous sketches, rants, and commentaries. Mark Twain at the "Buffalo Express" collects these complete and unabridged writings for the first time.

Twain's writings for the Buffalo Express crackle with his trademark energy, wit, and insight, illuminating his literary and intellectual journey during a seldom-studied period in his life. From these articles Twain cultivated themes and characters that later appeared in his best-known works. Everyone who loves Mark Twain will love Mark Twain at the "Buffalo Express."

Genres: Nonfiction

357 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're torn between reading this and the recent "The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express" (well, someone might be), this is the one to go with. It's got all the Twain-bylined columns and unsigned editorials Clemens is known to have written during his brief run as co-owner and co-editor at the paper, as opposed to the other book's more meager selection. This was his last stint in daily journalism, and although he was heartily sick of the field by the end, there are more than enough laughs to justify your time.

Some of the columns were callbacks to "The Innocents Abroad," some wound up in "Sketches, New and Old," and some were tryouts of material that went into "Roughing It." The editorials range from amusing to strangely obsessive: Clemens devoted acres of space to the claim by Harriet Beecher Stowe, of all people, that Lord Byron had fathered a child with his half-sister. I guess you had to be there.

The introduction, by an academic Twainologist, is skippable; the footnotes supply a lot of necessary context, but you may want to consult Wikipedia in a couple of cases to learn what the hell Twain was talking about.

[Mark Bratkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read much Mark Twain in my life and I thought this book, which is composed of newspaper sketches, would be really boring. However, I was surpised how comical some of Twain's pieces were. I don't think I've ever laughed out loud while reading a book before, but I was laughing as I read the Buffalo Express.
With that said, other articles were very dry. I got bored with newspaper articles about Lord Byron's affair or the war brewing in Prussia. I'm sure I would have appreciated them more if I was living in 1870.
I wouldn't recommend reading the whole book-unless you had to like me-but I would love to talk about the funnier sketches with avid readers and Twain fans. I think I'll like my Mark Twain course this semester.

[Evie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely flawed; some stories are incorrectly attributed to Twain, and it's overall a bit incomplete. Regardless, it's a useful text when trying to understand Mark Twain's time in Buffalo. Scribblin' For a Livin' by Thomas Reigstad addresses this time in Twain's life further, so I highly recommend it to anyone curious after reading this book.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well if you like Mark Twain, this is for school. Read for a first semester college class, I found it rather dull but I usually do with books that I am forced to read.