SOURCE: "The Gospel According to Philip Traum: Structural Unity in The Mysterious Stranger,'" in Studies in Short Fiction 8, No. 3, Summer, 1971, pp. 411-22.

In the following essay, May examines the connections between the central narrative of The Mysterious Stranger and its final chapter .

The major problem with the criticism of The Mysterious Stranger to date is that it has been too narrowly concerned with a thematic justification of the last chapter in relation to the rest of the work. The story was unfinished at the time of Twain's death; and it was not until his literary executor, Albert Bigelow Paine, "discovered" the final chapter that the story was eventually published in 1916. Without a final chapter the story undoubtedly lacks a sense of direction, yet critics have had trouble justifying the relationship between the unambiguous solipsism of the last chapter and the earlier development of the story. Is there...