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Hi, this is William Ramsey.

Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates on today's show of a very special guest who is publishing a book in August.

His full name is R, Kent, Rasmus, and last name is spelled R-A-S-M-U-S-S-S-E-N.

And if you're watching this on YouTube or Rockfinn or Twitter X, you you'll see the cover is Mark Twain's Tale of the Macabre and Mysterious.

But he's also the author of 14 other books on the very important subject of Mark Twain.

And he has a doctorate in history from the UCLA.

He's a retired reference book editor. He's been

recognized as the leading world authority on Mark Twain about whom he has published 13 books. Those volumes

include such now standard reference works as Mark Twain A to Z, its expanded revision, critical

companion to Mark Twain, and the quotable Mark Twain.

Mark Twain books that he has edited include four volumes of critical essays, several collection

of Mark Twain's own writings, including autobiographical writings, Penguin Classics edition

and Mark Twain for Dog Lovers, a Lions press publication.

He lives in Thousand Oaksaks california fairly close to me

but i read through this and it's pieces of kind of the some of the darker elements of taken from

mark twain's writings but mark or kent can talk more about that so kent welcome to the show

thank you very much, William.

So if people may not have heard your name, your background, you are one of the leading world

authorities on Mark Twain. Maybe you can take the listener back and talk about your interest

and how that developed and then led up to this current book.

Well, my interest in Mark Twain goes back to my early youth when our family inherited a set of Mark Twain books from a grandparent. I first read Tom

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