The reviewer tasked with discussing yet another book on Mark Twain, like the Shakespeare critic, must trump the fear of “same ol’, same ol’” with the optimism that a perceptive scholar can always make something new, different and of value, even from the well-worn clothes bin, by applying her own, unique talent for design. Judith Yaross Lee has accomplished just that, coming up with a new idea – applying the branding phenomenon of popular culture to Twain and then from Twain to a number of contemporary comedy products – and by some good reading using familiar references to comic archetypes, personae, and stances both for Twain and for those who follow.

The comedian as brand works very well for Twain, as Lee's first chapter explores nicely. Twain starts with a well-crafted persona, not by any means original, and builds on it, adding much more fleshed-out reporting to the wise fool's commonsense observations and growing to provide a fully fledged social and cultural analysis that relies on the credibility of the branded author as well as the quality of his commentary. It also relies on humor, which is a fine marketing tool for the brand. Elsewhere this reviewer has argued that Twain was one of two authentic geniuses coming out of the genre of American humor (along with Chaplin) because he mastered and improved on what a lot of people were doing (Twain was one of a plethora of humorists operating from the same basic system, as was Chaplin), but both were able to raise the bar appreciably to arrive at brilliant, profound, timeless analysis as well as a comic contemporary cultural critique.

In each chapter, Lee explores Twain's use of his brand as writer and performer before moving to some contemporary parallels. Her reading of Twain is excellent. The parallels suffer in the comparison, if only because none of them are anywhere near as fully, as successfully, developed as brands as was Twain. Lee is fine showing comparisons between the construction of a comic persona in Twain, Garrison Keillor, Jerry Seinfeld, Margaret Cho et al., but that is neither new nor particularly enlightening. Yes there are traditions of American humor that began way before Twain, were greatly expanded and embedded in the culture by him, and are now pretty much found everywhere (in a theater, publication, or broadcast near you). Many, if not all, of the comics cited by Lee, as well as dozens, if not hundreds, of others, have made nascent attempts at either branding their own comic reputation or placing themselves in the national comic brand that Lee ascribes to Twain. But few ever achieve what Louis Rubin Jr. defined as the Great American Joke that sets about examining reality from the perspective of our ideals and those ideals from the truth of our reality.

If all Lee wants to argue is that there are echoes of Twain's work in contemporary comedy, there is, of course, no quarrel possible. The parallel with Keillor is obvious, and, as she has done elsewhere, Lee illuminates this brightly. It's a stretch to include Cho and Seinfeld here, but Lee's nice reading makes stretching worthwhile. Placing the Yellow Kid and Aaron McGruder's Huey Freeman in the lineup only works for the persona construction. References to a more significant structure such as a national brand of humor assume a much more developed campaign than either were able to manage. A case can be made for Bart Simpson, at least for a while, for his achieving an iconic status that transcended his actual presence in comedy, and maybe the Second City–Saturday Night Live comedy became a brand and participated in the broader satiric brand identified with Mark Twain. That could be more fully explored in a separate study. I fail to see any definition of comic branding at work in the television network Comedy Central. However, the satiric talk show genre offers all sorts of possibilities both as straight comic commentary and as parody and self-parody.

This is a welcome book from a very fine scholar who knows the literature, both primary and secondary, related to humor and American popular culture. It is a book that offers opportunities for thought rather than a reiteration of what you already know.