"Contexts and Sources" provides readers with a rich selection of documents related to the historical background, language, composition, sale, reception, and newly discovered first half of the manuscript of Mark Twain's greatest work. Included are letters on the writing of the novel, excerpts from the author's autobiography, samples of bad poetry that inspired his satire (including an effort by young Sam Clemens himself), a section on the censorship of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by schools and libraries over a hundred-year period, and commentary by David Carkeet on dialects of the book and by Earl F. Briden on its "racist" illustrations. In addition, this section reprints the full texts of both "Sociable Jimmy," upon which is based the controversial theory that Huck speaks in a "black voice," and "A True Story, Repeated Word for Word As I Heard It," the first significant attempt by Mark Twain to capture the speech of an African American in print. "Criticism" of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is divided into "Early Responses" (including the first negative review) and "Modern Views" by Victor A. Doyno, T. S. Eliot, Jane Smiley, David L. Smith, Shelley Fisher Fishkin (the "black voice" thesis), James R. Kincaid (a rebuttal of Fishkin), and David R. Sewell. Also included is Toni Morrison's moving personal "Introduction" to the troubling experience of reading and re-reading Mark Twain's masterpiece. "A Chronology and Selected Bibliography" are also included.

This Norton Critical Edition includes: The American first edition text, plus the reinstated "raft passage" from Life on the Mississippi (1883), complete with all original illustrations by Edward Windsor Kemble and, for the raft passage, John Harley. Editorial matter by Thomas Cooley. A rich selection of contextual and source documents centred on the novel's historical background, language, composition and reception, four of them new to the Fourth Edition. Seventeen carefully chosen critical assessments of Mark Twain's greatest work, ten of them new to the Fourth Edition. A chronology and a selected bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format-annotated text, contexts and criticism-helps students to better understand, analyse and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

There is virtually universal agreement that the fundamental cause of the global economic and financial crisis of 2007-2009 was the combination of a credit boom and a housing bubble, but it is much less clear why this combination of events led to such a severe financial crisis. Manufacturing Tail Risk: A Perspective on the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 argues that what made this economic shock unique and led to such a severe financial crisis was the behavior of many of the large, complex financial institutions (LCFIs) that today dominate the financial industry. These LCFIs ignored their own business model of securitization and chose not to transfer credit risk to other investors. Instead, they employed securitization to manufacture and retain tail risk that was systemic in nature and inadequately capitalized. Manufacturing Tail Risk: A Perspective on the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 provides a brief history of how the U.S. financial system evolved into its current form. It presents the manner in which banks built tail (systemic) risk exposures in large measure to get around capital requirements, in contrast to their earlier business models, and it explains how lax regulation contributed to these outcomes. It also examines alternative explanations for the financial crisis. The authors conclude that global imbalances and loose monetary policy were relevant proximate contributors to the crisis by producing an asset-price bubble in the United States that ultimately led to the financial crisis. Manufacturing Tail Risk: A Perspective on the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 concludes with a discussion of possible remedies to charge banks for manufacturing tail risks and to contain such propensity in the first place. And while the focus is on the United States, the authors review risk-taking and realized losses by LCFIs in other parts of the world.