SOURCE: "Mark Twain and the Escape from Sense," in Mark Twain on the Loose: A Comic Writer and the American Self, University of Massachusetts Press, 1995, pp. 1-38.

In the following excerpt, Michelson begins by discussing several traditional interpretations of the jumping frog sketch as greatly indebted to the humorous Southwestern frame story. He then asserts that Twain breaks from the conventional structure to create a complex, mischievous tale that calls into question reality and common sense and confounds interpretation.

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog," which Mark Twain also published as, among other things, "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," and "The Frog Jumping of the County of Calaveras" (for in both name and substance this tale stayed appropriately restless in the retelling), indeed grew so "celebrated" that for years after its first appearance, an untitled frog-picture on handbills was advertisement enough for...