Readings adopted in this edition from a source other than the copy-text, Mark Twain's manuscript, are recorded here. The only copy-text readings changed without listing are the forms peculiar to the written page and the typographical features discussed in the textual introduction. Mechanical errors in inscription occasioned by incomplete revision in the manuscript are noted in the list of alterations in the manuscript.

In each entry, the reading of this edition is given first, its source identified by a symbol in parentheses; it is separated by a dot from the rejected copy-text reading on the right, thus: fiends (A) • devils. The following symbols refer to sources of emendation:

Pr      Publisher's prospectus for the first American edition
A      First American edition
Ab      Second state of the first American edition
I-C      This edition (Iowa-California)

This list also records the form adopted in this edition when a compound word is hyphenated at the end of a line in Mark Twain's manuscript. The form chosen has been determined by other occurrences of the word and parallels within this work, and by the appearance of the word in Mark Twain's other works of the period.

The symbol I-C follows any emendation whose source is not an authoritative text—Pr or A—even if the same correction was made in a subsequent, derivative, edition. A wavy dash (˜) on the right of the dot stands for the word on the left and signals that only a punctuation mark is emended. A caret (ʌ) indicates the absence of a punctuation mark, so that the entry “myself? (A) • ˜ʌ” shows that a question mark follows “myself” in the first American edition, while no punctuation follows “myself” in the copy-text. A vertical rule (word | word) indicates the end of a line in the manuscript. Information in square brackets, such as not in, is editorial. Emendations marked with an asterisk are discussed in the textual notes.