These notes specify features of the text which are treated generally in the textual introduction, and discuss adopted readings and aspects of authorial revision which require fuller explanation. Mark Twain's marginalia in the manuscript are included here in full; usually they are self-explanatory or explained by their context, and are therefore merely quoted and described without comment. Other features of the manuscript included here are drafts of letters, notes or fragments from other literary works, and notations in handwriting other than Mark Twain's.

The terms ink 1, ink 2, and ink 3 designate Mark Twain's writing materials (see the list of alterations in the manuscript for a full discussion of the ink colors). Cancellations are enclosed by angle brackets: they. A vertical rule indicates the end of a line in the manuscript.

Although a note may cite the first American edition as the source for an emendation, the emendation may be listed in the emendations list with the symbol Pr if it first occurred in the prospectus.

See the historical sources section of the introduction (pp. 19–25) for complete information on the works cited below only by author and short title.