Peter Messent is Emeritus Professor of Modern American Literature at Nottingham University. He is the author of The Crime Fiction Handbook (2012), the prize-winning Mark Twain and Male Friendship (2009), The Short Works of Mark Twain: A Critical Study (2001), Mark Twain (1997), Ernest Hemingway (1992), and New Readings of the American Novel: Narrative Theory and its Application (1990).
Louis J. Budd died after this book was first published, in 2011. He was James B. Duke Professor (Emeritus) of American Literature at Duke University, where he taught American Literature from 1981 to 1991. He was also the author of Mark Twain: Social Philosopher (reissued 2001) and Our Mark Twain: The Making of his Public Personality (1983) and the editor of Mark Twain: The Contemporary Reviews (1999). He served as founding president of the Mark Twain Circle of America