. . . Mark Twain's new book, Pudd'nhead Wilson, is, to us at least, a disappointment. There are flashes of fun in it here and there, passages of dry humor, or amusing exaggeration, of sterling good sense; the extracts from "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" used as head-lines for the chapters are extremely clever, and the idea is original and Mark Twainish. But taken as a whole and as a work of fiction, the story is excessively melodramatic, is confused, and is not always probable. (American Publishing Company, Hartford.)