"Backgrounds and Contexts" provides students with the standard source materials often cited by critics-Twain's stories of Good and Bad Boys, his Boy's Manuscript, his correspondence with William Dean Howells, and his 1870 letter to Will Bowen. This section also includes lesser-known but valuable contextual materials, among them Twain's journalistic description of school exercise and the discussion of Perry Davis' Pain Killer and other nineteenth-century nostrums. "Criticism" includes interpretations by William Dean Howells, Hamlin L. Hill, Judith Fetterley, Alan Gribben, Glenn Hendler, Carter Revard, and Susan R. Gannon. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.