Josh. Rambler. Soleather. Sergeant Fathom. Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass. W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. A Son of Adam. I ran through the names in my head as I devoured dry-rub barbecue and piled up napkins at <span>Memphis’ bustling Rendezvous. The restaurant’s slogan—“Not since Adam has a rib been this famous”—had reminded me of Mark Twain’s fondness for comic allusions to Adam, to the extent that he based an early pen name on him. But “A Son of Adam,” along with “Josh” and “Rambler” and his other experiments, belonged to an amateur, a man who occasionally wrote while otherwise employed as a printer, steamboat pilot and miner. Not until he became a full-time journalist, far from the river, in the alkali dust of the Nevada Territory, did he settle on “Mark Twain.”</span>
