Ann M. Ryan is Professor of American Literature at Le Moyne College, past president of the Mark Twain Circle, the former editor of The Mark Twain Annual, and co-editor of the volume Cosmopolitan Twain, published by the University of Missouri Press. Her research focuses primarily on issues of race and racism in Mark Twain’s life, his writings, and in the society that produced him. She also writes on the intersections of the gothic and humor in American culture.

• List of Illustrations/ ixAcknowledgments/ xiIntroduction: The Ghost as Grief—The Ghost as Trauma—The Ghost as Story/ 3Chapter 1: The Ghost of John Marshall Clemens/ 23 Judging Fathers—Bad Boys Make Great Men—Playing (Haunted)House—Stealing Home—Writing Wrong(s)—The Sins of the FatherCoda:In the Clutch of Circumstanceby A. Burglar/ 68 Chapter 2:The Ghost of Daniel/ 73 All in the Family—Mark Twain Meets Joel Chandler Harris—UncleDan’l Meets Uncle Remus—Banking on “The Golden Arm”—Travelswith “The Golden Arm”—How Not to Tell a StoryCoda: The True Story of Daniel Quarles/ 115 Chapter 3: The Ghost of Jim/ 121 Taking Stock of Dead People—Righting (and not Writing) theWronged Black Body—Fathers, Sons, and (un)Holy Ghosts—FearfulBlack Men—Fearing Black Men—Exorcising Jim’s Ghost Story—Brothers in ArmsCoda:James by Percival Everett/ 168   Chapter 4: The Ghost of Sam Clemens/ 173True Stories and Strange(r) Fictions—The Last Haunted House—Black Bones and White Ghosts—Ghost Writing Twain—Loving SamClemens to DeathCoda: Classic Twain/ 208Epilogue: Channeling the Ghost of Mark Twain/ 213Notes/ 227Bibliography/ 261Index/ 277

“For its depth of research and its commendable lucidity, its command and inventive analyses of Mark Twain's negotiation of personal and cultural memory, The Ghosts of Mark Twain will be of interest to a wide audience as well as a scholarly one.”—Eric Lott, City University of New York, author of Black Mirror: The Cultural Contradictions of American Racism