Mark Twain has been called the American Cervantes, the United States' Homer, Tolstoy, and Shakespeare. Ernest Hemingway maintained that all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the phrase New Deal from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Twain's Gilded Age gave an entire era its name. Twain is everywhere - in advertisements for Bass Ale, in episodes of Star Trek, as a greeter in Nevada's Silver Legacy casino. Clearly, the reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. In Lighting Out for the Territory, Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin blends personal narrative with reflections on history, literature, and popular culture to provide a lively and provocative look at who Mark Twain really was, how he got to be that way, and what we do with his legacy today. Fishkin illuminates the many ways that America has embraced Mark Twain - from the scenes and plots of his novels, to his famous quips, to his bushy-haired, white-suited persona. She reveals that we have constructed a Twain often far removed from the actual writer. This book is intended for scholars and students of American literature, and American cultural studies.