Mark Twain

Classic literary masterpieces help us to remind the spirit of Christmas and celebrate the timeless truths of the holiday season. This collection of Christmas short stories and tales by classic writers features works from Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Mark Twain, and more. A Merry Christmas and Other Christmas Stories: An Anthology of Short Stories Before the Great Tradition of Christmas is a book devoted to be enjoyed by the whole family during the Advent season. SHORT STORIES INCLUDED IN THIS BOOK: LOUISA MAY ALCOTT"A Christmas Dream, and How It Came to Be True""A Country Christmas"L. M. MONTGOMERY"Christmas at Red Butte""A Christmas Inspiration""A Christmas Mistake""Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket"WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS"Christmas Every Day"HARRIET BEECHER STOWE"Christmas; Or, the Good Fairy""Christmas in Poganuc"CHARLES DICKENS"A Christmas Dinner"MARK TWAIN"A Letter from Santa Claus"KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN AND NORA A. SMITH"The Story of Christmas"RALPH HENRY BARBOUR"A College Santa Claus"

A Horse's TaleBy Mark Twain1907A Horse's Tale is a novel by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), written partially in the voice of Soldier Boy, who is Buffalo Bill's favorite horse, at a fictional frontier outpost with the U. S. 7th Cavalry. BackgroundHarper's Magazine originally published the story in two installments in August and September 1906. Clemens wrote the story after receiving a request from actress Minnie Maddern Fiske to assist in her drive against bullfighting. Harper's published the story as a 153-page book in October 1907. Clemens's daughter Susy Clemens, who died in 1896 at age 24 of spinal meningitis, is understood to be the inspiration for lead character Cathy Alison. When Clemens provided the story to Harper's, he included a photograph of Susy for the illustrator to use for Cathy. I am Buffalo Bill's horse. I have spent my life under his saddle-with him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his clothes and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on the war-path and has his batteries belted on. He is over six feet, is young, hasn't an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in his motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair dangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at and nobody is braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself. Yes, a person that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded buck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing a hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out behind from the shelter of his broad slouch. Yes, he is a sight to look at then- and I'm part of it myself. I am his favorite horse, out of dozens. Big as he is, I have carried him eightyone miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout and I am good for fifty, day in and day out, and all the time. I am not large, but I am built on a business basis. I have carried him thousands and thousands of miles on scout duty for the army, and there's not a gorge, nor a pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a buffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don't know as well as we know the bugle-calls. He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier, and it makes us very important. In such a position as I hold in the military service one needs to be of good family and possess an education much above the common to be worthy of the place. I am the best-educated horse outside of the hippodrome, everybody says, and the best-mannered. It may be so, it is not for me to say modesty is the best policy, I think. Buffalo Bill taught me the most of what I know, my mother taught me much, and I taught myself the rest. Lay a row of moccasins before me-Pawnee, Sioux, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as you please-and I can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make of it. Name it in horse-talk, and could do it in American if I had speech.

A Double Barrelled Detective StoryMark Twain1902 A Double Barreled Detective Story is a short story/novelette by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), in which Sherlock Holmes finds himself in the American west. SummaryThe story contains two arcs of revenges. In the primary arc, a rich young woman is abused, humiliated and abandoned by her new husband, Jacob Fuller, whom she married against the wishes of her father. The young Fuller resents her father's rejection and dismissal of him as a neer-do-well and resolves to exact his revenge by mis-treating his new bride. After his abandonment, she bears a son who she names Archy Stillman. When the child gets older, the mother discovers that he possesses an incredible ability of smell, like a bloodhound. The mother instructs her child, now sixteen, to seek out his biological father with the intent of destroying that man's peace and reputation, and hence extracting satisfaction for her. Five years later in a second arc, at a mining camp in California, Fetlock Jones, a nephew of Sherlock Holmes, kills his master Flint Buckner, a silver-miner, by blowing up his cabin. Since this occurs when Holmes happens to be visiting, Holmes applies his skills to bear upon the case and derives a logically worked conclusion that is proved to be abysmally wrong by Archy Stillman using his sense of smell. This could be seenas yet another piece where Twain tried to prove that life does not quite follow logic. This is a satire by Twain on the mystery novel genre. In the second arc, Sherlock Holmes is depicted in employing "scientific methods" to a ridiculous degree, yet arriving at a completely wrong assessment. On the other hand, the crime is solved with a supernatural ability that no normal human possesses. Yet even this fails to reveal the whole truth as the final twist of the story indicates. Furthermore, Sam Clemens/Mark Twain poked through the "4th wall" and appeared as himself in the middle of the story, supposedly while the story was being serialized, and responded to letters sent in by readers to the newspaper editor. During the exchange, Twain made fun of/self-advertised on some of his other

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Some early editions are titled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. In the book, a Yankee engineer from Connecticut named Hank Morgan receives a severe blow to the head and is somehow transported in time and space to England during the reign of King Arthur. After some initial confusion and his capture by one of Arthur's knights, Hank realizes that he is actually in the past, and he uses his knowledge to make people believe that he is a powerful magician. He attempts to modernize the past in order to make people's lives better, but in the end he is unable to prevent the death of Arthur and an interdict against him by the Catholic Church of the time, which grows fearful of his power. Twain wrote the book as a burlesque of Romantic notions of chivalry after being inspired by a dream in which he was a knight himself, severely inconvenienced by the weight and cumbersome nature of his armor. It is a satire of feudalism and monarchy that also celebrates homespun ingenuity and democratic values while questioning the ideals of capitalism and outcomes of the Industrial Revolution. It is among several works by Twain and his contemporaries that mark the transition from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era of socioeconomic discourse. The novel is a comedy that sees sixth-century England and its medieval culture through Hank Morgan's view he is a nineteenth-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut, who, after a blow to the head, awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England where he meets King Arthur himself. Hank, who had an image of that time that had been colored over the years by romantic myths, takes on the task of analyzing the problems and sharing his knowledge from 1300 years in the future to try to modernize, Americanize, and improve the lives of the people

Huckleberry Finn lives a comfortable life with Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas, but Huck hungers for adventure and freedom from their attempts to "sivilize" him. Huck's deadbeat father returns and kidnaps him in an effort to claim a large sum of money that Huck earned as a reward for helping capture some robbers. Huck fakes his own death to escape from his father, and then takes to the river in a canoe. As Huck is hiding out, he meets Miss Watson's runaway slave, Jim. The two set off on a great adventure down the Mississippi to help Jim gain his freedom. Along the way, they spend time with wealthy folks and scoundrels. They are even reunited with Huck's friend Tom Sawyer before discovering that Miss Watson's death has left Jim a free man.

Tom Canty, youngest son of a poor family living with the dregs of society in Offal Court, has always aspired to a better life. Loitering around the palace gates one day, he sees the Prince of Wales -Edward VI. Tom is nearly caught and beaten by the Royal Guards; however, Edward stops them and invites Tom into his palace chamber. There the two boys get to know one another, fascinated by each other's life and their uncanny resemblance. They decide to switch clothes "temporarily". Edward leaves in a hurry before the boys are caught at their game, snatching up the Great Seal of England. Soon Prince Edward is trying to escape the brutality of Tom's abusive drunken father. Tom, posing as the prince, tries to cope with court customs and manners.....

Tom Sawyer is young, imaginative and mischievous and lives with his Aunt Polly and half-brother Sid in a Mississippi town. A young girl, Becky Thatcher moves into town and Tom falls in love with her. They have a tiff and Tom is off to the town graveyard with his best friend Huckleberry Finn, where they witness the wicked Injun Joe murder Doctor Robinson. When this comes to light, Injun Joe blames Muff Potter. Obviously this is too much for a young Tom to take, and he is afraid to tell what he knows. He, Huck and their friend Joe Harper decide to become pirates and camp on an island in the river. When they come to know that Aunt Polly thinks they are all dead and a funeral is planned, they return home in a hurry. Once back, Tom feels braver and decides to testify against Injun Joe, who escapes from the law but ultimately dies starving in a cave and Tom and Huck find his hidden treasure.

A great American novelist, illustrated by a great American artist - now available in a collectable two-volume set. In 1936, the Heritage Press, a publisher of fine editions, commissioned Norman Rockwell to illustrate Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer; four years later, they asked him to illustrate The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as well. For each book, Rockwell created eight full-colour paintings and numerous pen-and-ink drawings, the product of extensive on-the-ground research in Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Famously, Rockwell even tried to buy some Hannibal residents' old clothes, to dress his models in. For years, the Rockwell editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have been unavailable in stores. Now, Abbeville Press is proud to reissue them as a handsome new clothbound set. The colour plates are reproduced from new photography of Rockwell's original paintings, the typesetting has been done anew to a high standard, and new introductions - illustrated with Rockwell's rarely seen preliminary sketches - examine this unique encounter between two legendary chroniclers of America. Also available: Treasure Island and Kidnapped boxed set ISBN 9780789214089

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain Commonly med among the Great American Novels. In this classic of American literature, Huck and the escaped slave Jim set off down the Mississippi on a raft for a series of memorable adventures. Escaping his alcoholic father by faking his death, we join him as he voyages down the Mississippi River seeking liberation. Finding his way to Jackson's island he meets Jim, Mrs. Watson's ruway slave. What happens as they team up, capture a raft and encounter a seemingly haphazard array of people and situations? Immersed in deadly violence, finding tranquility only on the river with Jim, will Huckleberry Finn find the freedom and independence he is seeking? A scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, Twain's the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn defines the American Dream of young heroes. Sometimes ironic, sometimes mocking, sometimes boyish and exuberant.

Little treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader. One of the most beloved and influential books in American literature, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a comic yet incisive portrait of 19th century America. Told from the perspective of Huck Finn, a good-hearted if wayward thirteen-year-old, it vividly recounts his adventures as he escapes his abusive home and embarks on a journey down the Mississippi River along with Jim, a runaway slave. Through the eyes of Huck, and particularly his relationship with Jim, Twain confronts the hypocrisy of a society that clings to slavery and entrenched racial prejudice while claiming to be the land of the free. The FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library.

Little treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader. Mischievous and smart, Tom Sawyer, is one of American literature’s most beloved literary characters. Originally published in 1876, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer chronicles the exploits of Tom and his friends – including Twain’s other lovable rogue, Huckleberry Finn – as they witness a murder, play at being pirates along the Mississippi River, hunt for treasure and even attend their own funeral. Inspired by Twain’s own boyhood, this spirited classic is full of hi-jinks, not to mention a good deal of suspense. The FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are back in another sequel to their adventures in Tom Sawyer, Detective, by American author Mark Twain. Twain, known for writing the "great American novel," is renowned for his humorous tales that often have themes dealing with slavery, poverty, and hypocrisy. In his children's adventure novel, Tom Sawyer, Detective, Tom sets out to solve a murder mystery after meeting Jake Dunlap, who is on the run from thieves he stole diamonds from. After helping him escape, Tom and Huck find themselves on the farm of Tom's Uncle Silas, who is being harassed by Jake Dunlap's brother Brace in order to force Silas' daughter Benny into marrying him. When the body of Jake's brother Jubiter is found, Silas is suddenly on trial for murder and Tom must save him. Told from the perspective of Huck Finn, the friends are caught between two brothers, two diamonds, and two con men. Tom Sawyer, Detective is a dramatic culmination of all the great detective novels of its time, with a thrilling storyline and excellent humor. This is one short adventure you won't be able to forget.

Following the classic adventures of Tom Sawyer and his friend, Huckleberry Finn, we have Tom Sawyer Abroad, a humorous tale about Tom, Huck, and their friend Jim traveling to see the world's great wonders. Mark Twain, known as one of the great literary geniuses, is famous for his critical writing on the hypocrisies of the 19th century. Twain masterfully combines savage wit, comedic characters, and unique storytelling to create his works of fiction which, to this day, still influence literature. In Tom Sawyer Abroad Tom, Huck, and Jim travel to Africa, a place they have never been before, in a hot air balloon. There, they face dangers they've never encountered with a brave face in order to complete their great adventure of seeing of the Seven Wonders of the World. Twain was heavily inspired by the adventure stories written by Jules Verne, and Tom Sawyer Abroad was written as a parody of Verne's writing. This children's adventure novel, told through the eyes of Huck Finn, is a short read that is perfect for young kids but exciting enough to hold the attention of an older crowd just as well.

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.