Mark Twain

Six years after Mark Twain's death, Albert Bigelow Paine, the author's literary executor, brought out a bowdlerized edition of "The Mysterious Stranger", which he patched together from Mark Twain's three unfinished manuscripts, produced, Paine asserted, during a period of supposed creative paralysis. Scholars have since discovered that Paine's edition of the book was largely based on the earliest of those three versions, onto which Paine then grafted the final chapter of the last version. Indeed, Paine changed so many of the book's essentials that it cannot be said to accurately reflect the author's mood and thought at all. Gibson's volume, first published in 1969 and now back in print, presented the manuscripts for the first time exactly as Mark Twain wrote them. Here, the reader is offered a glimpse of Mark Twain's creative process on what many critics consider the finest fiction of his later years. While the work was begun in 1897 and revised first in 1902 and then in 1908, the third version was the only manuscript actually titled "The Mysterious Stranger". These texts provide a rare opportunity to observe Mark Twain's sustained literary struggle with a central theme.

"Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins," by Mark Twain, is part of the "Barnes & Noble Classics"" "series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of "Barnes & Noble Classics" All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. "Barnes & Noble Classics "pulls together a constellation of influences--biographical, historical, and literary--to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Written during Mark Twain's so-called pessimistic period, "Pudd'nhead Wilson" is a darkly comic masterpiece that exposes the wounds of racism in America and the absurdity of judging character based upon class or skin color. Set in a small Mississippi River town in the state of Missouri before the Civil War, the novel begins when Roxana, a beautiful slave who can pass for white, switches the child of her master with her own infant son, now called Tom, who grows into a cruel and cowardly man. When Tom's uncle, Judge Driscoll, is found murdered after a botched robbery attempt, suspicion is cast upon two former sideshow performers, Luigi and Angelo Capello, a pair of good-looking and charming identical twins from Italy. Meanwhile, David "Pudd'nhead" Wilson is a wise but unorthodox lawyer who collects fingerprints as a hobby. Shunned as an eccentric, he ultimately wins the respect of the townspeople when he solves the murder mystery and reveals the true identity of the killer. Often hilarious, sometimes appalling, and always fast-paced, "Pudd'nhead Wilson" is ultimately a fierce condemnation of a racially prejudiced society that was predicated upon the institution of slavery. This edition also includes Twain's related short story, "Those Extraordinary Twins." Darryl Pinckney is the author of "High Cotton," a novel, and, in the Alain Locke Lecture Series, "Out There: Mavericks of Black Literature."

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary. ORG - - YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly - Tom's Aunt Polly, she is - and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary. ORG - - [The Old Man and the Young Man had been conversing. The Old Man had asserted that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more. The Young Man objected, and asked him to go into particulars and furnish his reasons for his position.] Old Man. What are the materials of which a steam-engine is made? Young Man. Iron, steel, brass, white-metal, and so on. O. M. Where are these found? Y. M. In the rocks. O. M. In a pure state? Y. M. No - in ores. O. M. Are the metals suddenly deposited in the ores?

Mark Twain created one of America's best-loved fictional characters in Huckleberry Finn. Recounting the exploits of the imaginative adolescent as he and the runaway slave, Jim, raft down the Mississippi River, Twain ultimately addresses far deeper themes - man's inhumanity to man and the hypocrisy of conventional values.

The classic story of a mischievous 19th-century boy in a Mississippi River town and his friends, Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher, as they run away from home, witness a murder, and find treasure in a cave.

Mark Twain explores the darker side of life in these lesser-known later writings dealing with personal tragedies, nightmarish world events, and a doubtful cosmic order. He views his own situation as that of a ship trapped in a fearsome Bermuda Triangle-like region, the Devil's Race-Track. He sees history as a treadmill of endlessly and monotonously repeated events. And he conceives of a universal food chain, a vast round of devourers who in their turn become victims, humankind and God included. The tone of these writings is lightened considerably by Mark Twain's sagely ironic humor and his warmth, which together balance his tough-mindedness. And even when he shows the human race caught in some vicious circle, he may be seen courageously seeking a way out and at times believing he has found it.