SOURCE: "The Microscope and the Dream," in Mark Twain as a Literary Artist, University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, pp. 352-76.

In the following essay, Bellamy examines The Mysterious Stranger in the light of Twain's biography and writing notebooks.

The book called The Mysterious Stranger presents Mark Twain's final expression of the village and its inhabitants. Bernard DeVoto believes that this book resulted from the personal disasters which engulfed Mark Twain in the late eighteen nineties. His publishing firm failed; the Paige typesetting machine wrecked his fortune in its debacle; his youngest daughter, Jean, was discovered to be afflicted with epilepsy; his eldest daughter, Susy, closest to him in talent and spirit, died of meningitis; and Livy, after Susy's death, was an invalid the last eight years of her life. "The gods had turned against their darling," says Mr. DeVoto in Mark Twain at Work; and he believes that the...