Mark Twain

One of Twain’s most celebrated novellas, ‘The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg’ is a satirical retelling of the Garden of Eden story in the Bible, in which the author, mocking the supposed honesty and incorruptibility of the inhabitants of an imaginary American town, shows how man is fundamentally bad and cannot resist the temptations of gold. This collection also includes another acclaimed novella, ‘A Double-Barrelled Detective Story’, a spoof of the mystery genre featuring Sherlock Holmes in the American West, as well as lesser-known narratives such as ‘The Belated Russian Passport’ and ‘The Death Disk’. Together, these tales are a testament to Twain’s inexhaustible gift for invention and his skills as a storyteller.

When a murder takes place in Dawson’s Landing, Missouri, the lives of twin Italian noblemen, the courageous slave Roxy, her 1/32nd “black” son who has been raised “white,” and a failing lawyer with an intense interest in the science of fingerprinting become tangled. The unsolved riddle at the heart of Pudd’nhead Wilson is less the identity of the murderer than it is the question of whether nature or nurture makes the man. In his introduction, Werner Sollors illuminates the complex web of uncertainty that is the switched-and-doubled-identity world of Mark Twain’s novel. This edition follows the text of the 1899 De Luxe edition and for the first time reprints all the E. W. Kemble illustrations that accompanied it. Since 1959 The John Harvard Library has been instrumental in publishing essential American writings in authoritative editions.

Mark Twain's darkest novel--about a master and slave switched at birth--combines a courtroom drama with a provocative fable about race and identity. Twain's plot is set in motion when a slave named Roxy exchanges her light-skinned son Chambers with her master's baby, Tom. Roxy's child, now known as Tom, grows up as a spoiled, privileged white man, who is horrified when Roxy tells him the truth. He nearly gets away with a vicious crime, but his downfall comes in the form of a clever, eccentric lawyer, nicknamed "Puddn'head" Wilson. Twain's novel was the first to use fingerprinting to solve a crime, but its significance goes much further as an investigation into the nature of identity. When the two young men are forced to change places again, the former slave finds himself exiled to a white world where he will never feel at ease, while Roxy's child discovers that his newfound value as human property outweighs his guilt as a murderer. Despite its ironic humor and the symmetrical neatness of its denouement, Pudd'nhead Wilson is a tragedy that refuses easy answers.

Mark Twain's satiric novel about two boys who trade places in Tudor England--written "for young people of all ages"--was his first foray into historical fiction. Set in 1547, The Prince and the Pauper brings together Tom Canty, an impoverished urchin who lives with his abusive father in London's filthiest streets, and pampered Prince Edward, the son of King Henry VIII. Noticing their uncanny resemblance, the two boys trade clothes on a whim. While Tom lives in the lap of luxury and finds he has a knack for rendering wise judgments, the ragged Prince Edward roams the city and discovers firsthand the misery of his poorest subjects' lives. But when the king dies and Edward tries to claim his throne, he finds that changing places will be difficult to undo. In this rollicking tale, Twain's scathing indictment of injustice comes richly clothed in his trademark humor and wit.

Unspelled edition of English children's classic.

The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River sometime in the later decades prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Huckleberry "Huck" Finn and his friend, Thomas "Tom" Sawyer, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures. Huck explains how he is placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her stringent sister, Miss Watson, are attempting to civilize him and teach him religion. Finding civilized life confining, his spirits are raised somewhat when Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night past Miss Watson's slave Jim, to meet up with Tom's gang of self-proclaimed "robbers." Just as the gang's activities begin to bore Huck, he is suddenly interrupted by the reappearance of his shiftless father, "Pap", an abusive alcoholic. Knowing that Pap would only spend the money on alcohol, Huck is successful in preventing Pap from acquiring his fortune; however, Pap gains legal custody of Huck and leaves town with him.

The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River sometime in the later decades prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Huckleberry "Huck" Finn and his friend, Thomas "Tom" Sawyer, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures. Huck explains how he is placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her stringent sister, Miss Watson, are attempting to civilize him and teach him religion. Finding civilized life confining, his spirits are raised somewhat when Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night past Miss Watson's slave Jim, to meet up with Tom's gang of self-proclaimed "robbers." Just as the gang's activities begin to bore Huck, he is suddenly interrupted by the reappearance of his shiftless father, "Pap", an abusive alcoholic. Knowing that Pap would only spend the money on alcohol, Huck is successful in preventing Pap from acquiring his fortune; however, Pap gains legal custody of Huck and leaves town with him.