I have been reading Twain for something between 55 and 60 years, I suppose. I don't count that as "lately"; but at the time I started reading him, he had been d

I have been reading Twain for something between 55 and 60 years, I suppose. I don't count that as "lately"; but at the time I started reading him, he had been dead for 50 years, which most would count as "safely". About 30 years ago, Cynthia Ozick published an essay on Trollope in the NY Times Book Review. A couple of weeks later, there were annoyed letters to the editor from persons who considered that her essay had the tone of granting permission to read Trollope, as if Trollope-reading had previously been the province of Anglophile snobs. I offer that as an example of how one may qualify an audience in terms it finds offensive without writing down the author.