Mark Twain’s Last Works as a Journalist

‘The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express’ offers the noted authors features with both period and more recent artwork.

The stories published by the Buffalo Express represent Mark Twain's final work as a journalist.

In 1869, Mark Twain began a short tenure as managing editor of the Buffalo Express, Buffalo’s morning newspaper. Besides editorial duties, Twain wrote Saturday features that highlighted his inimitable humor. Illustrations, roughed out by Twain and finished by in-house artists, accompanied them.

“The Illustrated Mark Twain and the Buffalo Express: 10 Stories and Over a Century of Sketches” by Thomas J. Reigstad collects these stories and illustrations in one volume. It includes 20th-century illustrations made when the Buffalo Courier-Express reprinted the pieces.