[Mark Twain] was by great odds, the most noble figure America has ever given to English literature. Having him, we may hold up our heads when Spaniards boast of Cervantes and Frenchmen of Moliere. His one book, Huckleberry Finn, is worth, I believe, the complete works of Poe, Hawthorne, Cooper, Holmes, Howells, and James, with the entire literary output to date of Indiana, Pennsylvania and all the States south of the Potomac thrown in as makeweight. — H. L. Mencken