Mark Twain

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn follows Tom Sawyer's best friend on his wildly entertaining exploits with runaway slave, Jim, recounted in vernacular English and vibrant descriptions of life along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society, which had ceased to exist at the time of its publication, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often regarded as a scathing satire on the institution of racism and the attitudes that supported it. However, it is also a playful story about the joys and evils of childhood as well as the limitless possibilities it allows. Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author's personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research. Read with confidence.

This unique collection of Twain's essential short stories and semiautobiographical narratives is a testament to the author's vast imagination. Featuring popular stories such as "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," and "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut," the edition also includes some darker works written in the author's twilight years. Together, these selections illuminate the depth of Twain's artistry, humor, irony, and narrative genius.

Determined that her baby son Tom shall not share her fate and remain in slavery, Roxy secretly exchanges him with his playmate Chambers, the son of her master. The two boys' lives in the quiet Missouri town of Dawson's Landing remain entwined even though they take very different directions. The indulged Tom (now heir to a fortune rightfully that of Chambers) goes to Yale, where he learns how to drink and gamble, while Chambers looks set to remain a subservient drudge. But then a strange sequence of events begins - one in which the much-derided lawyer, 'Pudd'nhead' Wilson, has a key part to play - and changes everything. Darkly ironic, blending farce and tragedy, Pudd'nhead Wilson is a complex and fascinating depiction of human nature under slavery.

An ecclectic assortment of provocative essays, criticism, parody, commentary, and tales by the celebrated American humorist, all published after his death, encompasses such topics as English architecture, the civilization of the French, James Fenimore Cooper, etiquette, and the history of the world. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

The text of this new scholarly edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is the first ever to be based on Mark Twain's complete, original manuscript - including its first 665 pages, which had been lost for over a hundred years when they turned up in 1990 in a Los Angeles attic. The text has been thoroughly re-edited using this manuscript, restoring thousands of details of wording, spelling, and punctuation which had been corrupted by Mark Twain's typist, typesetters, and proofreaders. It includes all of the 174 first edition illustrations by Edward Windsor Kemble, which the author called 'most rattling good'. The editorial matter is extraordinarily rich. A new introduction tells the story of how Mark Twain's book was written, edited, published, and received, and spells out in detail the effect of the newly discovered manuscript on the text. Included are revised and updated maps of the Mississippi River valley, explanatory notes, glossary, and several documentary appendixes such as Twain's literary working notes, facsimile manuscript pages, facsimile reproductions of the author's revisions for his public reading tours, and contemporary advertisements and announcements. Also included are a description of the manuscript and all texts used in preparing this edition and complete lists of the author's revisions. The acclaimed 2001 "Mark Twain Library Edition" (Library edition books are intended for general readers) was drawn from this comprehensive new scholarly edition in the "Works of Mark Twain" series.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER is an amusing, nostalgic look at boyhood on the Mississippi River in the mid-19th century, and is based on Mark Twain's memories of his youth in the river town of Hannibal, Missouri. Many of the story's characters and episodes are constructed from the author's early adventures, and Tom Sawyer is probably Mark Twain in mufti. The book is also an insight into Twain's character: he believed that in this complex world innocence was to be found only in the heart of a boy.

Specially abridged version of beloved classic about the poor beggar boy and the English prince who exchange identities. Twists and turns in an exciting plot that will thrill young readers and listeners.

Specially abridged version of the beloved classic about a mischievous but well-meaning young lad who barely avoids calamity as he bounds along from one adventure to another. Memorable cast of characters includes Aunt Polly, Becky Thatcher, Huck Finn, Injun Joe, and others. 31 black-and-white illustrations.

Climb aboard the raft with Huck and Jim and drift away from the "sivilized" life and into a world of adventure, excitement, danger, and self-discovery. Huck's shrewd and humorous narrative is complemented by lyrical descriptions of the Mississippi valley and a sparkling cast of memorable characters.

In this classic satiric novel, published in 1889, Hank Morgan, a supervisor in a Connecticut gun factory, falls unconscious after being whacked on the head. When he wakes up he finds himself in Britain in 528 -- where he is immediately captured, hauled back to Camelot to be exhibited before the knights of King Arthur's Round Table, and sentenced to death. Things are not looking good. But Hank is a quick-witted and enterprising fellow, and in the process of saving his life he turns himself into a celebrity of the highest magnitude. His Yankee ingenuity and knowledge of the world beyond the Dark Ages are regarded as the most powerful sorcery -- winning him a position of prime minister as well as the eternal enmity of a jealous Merlin. In an effort to bring democratic principles and mechanical knowledge to the kingdom, Hank introduces newspapers, telephones, bicycles, and other modern conveniences to the Britain of the Dark Ages. But when he tries to improve the lot of the common people, chaos and war result, giving a bittersweet tone to this comic masterpiece by one of America's greatest storytellers.

Set in Renaissance England, "The Prince and the Pauper" tells the story of Tom Canty, a ragged pauper, and young Edward VI, only son of Henry VIII, who miraculously look exactly alike. Almost by accident, the boys exchange places a few days before Henry's death and Edward's coronation, leaving Tom to the role of future king and Edward to the mercy of the beggar's underworld of London. This rousing tale of mistaken identity reveals a side of Mark Twain seldom seen. His characteristic anger and cynicism are muted in favour of an optimistic view of humanity. This annotated edition sets the novel in the context of Twain's family life while exploring the psychological complexities of conscience, fatherhood, and imposture which informed all his work.

Mark Twain's unsettling imagination and passionate curiosity roamed far and wide—racing across microscopic worlds and interstellar voids, leaping ahead to fearful futures, and speculating on dazzling inventions to come. Tales of Wonder features some of the most notable but little-known science fiction available, penned by the famed American humorist and writer. With characteristic wit and acuity, Twain embarks on an epic journey into a drop of water, catches a glimpse of an invisible man, reveals a generation-starship-type world in the heart of a drifting iceberg, and imagines futuristic devices of instantaneous communication such as the "phrenophone" and "telelectroscope." Twain pioneered the use of time travel to the past in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. As for the future, he envisioned a radical utopia of absolute suffrage and future histories in which a global theocracy holds sway or a monarchy rules America. This entertaining and absorbing collection of tales reminds us that the former steamboat pilot dreamed about the stars, anticipated and dreaded the future, and above all was continually surprised and enchanted by the world around him.