Mark Twain

In the early 1870s, Mark Twain, along with his friend and neighbor Charles Dudley Warner -- who had chided their wives for the low quality novels they were reading -- were challenged by them to write something better. Twain, who would eventually attain to worldwide fame for his novels "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" had never before written a novel; the collaboration here exposed political corruption of the day and gave the era an enduring name, that of this novel: The Gilded Age. The Gilded Age examines the greed and corruption rampant in America at that time, from wild speculations by frontier megalomaniacs to shady intrigues by Washington politicians, even including the murder of a bigamist by a sexy lobbyist whom he had earlier led astray and betrayed, and relates how many women of the time wanted to change genders. Almost twenty years later, Twain (by himself, this time) wrote a sequel, "The American Claimant" which is possibly his most wildly inventive and wacky novel of all, and incorporates one-armed cowboys, mad scientists, and armies of zombies mobilized to provide cheap labor to speculators. These two novels are combined here in one volume.

The Prince and the Pauper tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London, and Prince Edward, son of King Henry VIII. The prince wants to see something of real life, and the pauper longs to escape from the cruelty of his world. Through a quirk of fate, each boy is given the chance to glimpse the world through the other's eyes.

The Prince and the Pauper tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London, and Prince Edward, son of King Henry VIII. The prince wants to see something of real life, and the pauper longs to escape from the cruelty of his world. Through a quirk of fate, each boy is given the chance to glimpse the world through the other's eyes.

Nel 1867 Mark Twain salpa da New York per un viaggio che lo portera in Europa e Medio Oriente. Dai resoconti scritti in questi lunghi mesi, poi riuniti in un unico volume, nasce The Innocents Abroad, che divenne uno dei libri di viaggio piu diffusi del suo tempo. Oggi, a 150 anni di distanza, le pagine dedicate alla Terra Santa vengono riproposte in una nuova e appassionante traduzione in grado di restituire a pieno lo stile dello scrittore americano: ironico, scanzonato e spesso "politicamente scorretto". Ribaltando le entusiastiche descrizioni dei suoi predecessori, l'Autore stravolge il ritratto romantico e quasi mitico della tradizione letteraria per abbandonarsi a descrizioni anticonvenzionali. Caduta l'aura di sacralita che da sempre circonda questa terra, svelate le "pie menzogne" dei pellegrini, ecco emergere una Palestina arida, bruciata dal sole, popolata di accattoni e mendicanti. Una terra difficile e "repulsiva", ma al contempo ricca di testimonianze, in cui lo scettico Twain ritrova gli stessi personaggi, le stesse case, le stesse abitudini del racconto biblico, arrivando a leggerlo sotto una luce diversa. Un ritratto della Terra Santa fuori dagli schemi, inedito e originale che fara sorridere, meravigliare, riflettere - e talora, forse, indignare - il lettore moderno.

Written by Mark Twain during the Philippine-American War in the first decade of the twentieth century, The War Prayer tells of a patriotic church service held to send the town's young men off to war. During the service, a stranger enters and addresses the gathering. He tells the patriotic crowd that their prayers for victory are double-edged-by praying for victory they are also praying for the destruction of the enemy... for the destruction of human life.

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain. It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention. The story has also been published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" (its original title) and "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, about the gambler Jim Smiley. The narrator describes him: "If he even seen a straddle bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to wherever he going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road." The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches is also the title story of an 1867 collection of short stories by Mark Twain. It was Twain's first book and collected 27 stories that were previously published in magazines and newspapers

The Mysterious Stranger is the novel attempted by the American author Mark Twain. He worked on it intermittently from 1897 through 1908. Twain wrote multiple versions of the story; each involves a supernatural character called "Satan". In 1590, three boys, Theodor, Seppi and Nikolaus, live relatively happy simple lives in a remote Austrian village called Eseldorf (German for "Assville" or "Donkeytown"). The story is narrated by Theodor, the village organist's son. Other local characters include Father Peter, his niece Marget, and the astrologer. One day, a handsome teenage boy named Satan appears in the village. He explains that he is an angel and the nephew of the fallen angel Satan. Young Satan performs several magical feats. He claims to be able to foresee the future and informs the group of unfortunate events that will soon befall those they care about. The boys don't believe Satan's claims until one of his predictions comes true. Satan proceeds to describe further tragedies that will befall their friends. The boys beg Satan to intercede. Satan agrees, but operates under the technical definition of mercy. For instance, instead of a lingering death due to illness, Satan simply causes one of Theodor's friends to die immediately. In the village and in other places around the world where Satan transports them magically, the boys witness religious fanaticism, witch trials, burnings, hangings, deaths and mass hysteria. Finally, Satan vanishes with a brief explanation: "here is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities "