Henry Nash Smith (September 29, 1906 – June 6, 1986) was a scholar of American culture and literature. He was co-founder of the academic discipline "American studies". He was also a noted Mark Twain scholar, and the curator of the Mark Twain Papers. The Handbook of Texas reported that an uncle encouraged Smith to read at an early age, and that the boy developed an interest in the works of Rudyard Kipling, Robert L. Stevenson and Mark Twain.