Mark Twain

Legendary author Mark Twain presents a collection of essays, stories, and assorted other pieces, ranging from creative fantasies about a conman swindling a town of puritans to recounts of his short-lived adventures at soldiering to his opinion of Christian Scientists. A nice collection of very well told tales from yesteryear. "the entire arsenal of his art: the occasionally reckless polemic, the derisive irony, the intelligent laughter, the verbal stilettos, the blunt country humor, the fervent despair, the hidden jeer, the relishing of palaver and tall tale, the impatient worldliness, and the brilliant forays of language." "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," a dark and riveting dissection of a town's hypocrisy, vanity, and misplaced pride, is one of Twain's most ingenious and memorable stories. Whether anatomizing the dynamics of anti-Semitism in "Concerning the Jews" or "Stirring Times in Austria," or looking back on his personal literary odyssey in "My D but as a Literary Person," Twain is lively and engaging. This volume also contains "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It," a remarkable essay that begins lightly, but soon turns into a razor sharp attack on humanity's indifference to injustice.

In this biting satire by Twain, a 19th c. Yankee mechanic is knocked out during a brawl, and wakes to find himself in Camelot, A. D. 528, in King Arthur's Court. When the modern mechanic tries to cure society's ills (oppressed peasantry, evil church, etc.) with 19th c. industrial inventions like electricity and gunfire - all hell breaks loose

The title story is Twain's darkly fantastic take on religion, reality, and the meaning of life. It takes place in 1590 in the remote Austrian village of Eseldorf, where few young boys greet an unexpected visitor: an angel named Satan. Among the six other stories included are "A Fable," "Hunting the Deceiful Turkey," and "The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm."

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 whose name he shares. 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: " T]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 "

Huckleberry Finn is a young boy in the 1840s, who runs away from home, and floats down the Mississippi River. He meets a run away slave named Jim and the two undertake a series of adventures based on the Picaresque novel by Mark Twain. As the story progresses the duo exploit an array of episodic enterprises, while Huckleberry slowly changes his views of bigotry. Along the way, Huck and Jim meet the King and Duke, who ultimately send the protagonists towards a different route on their journey. As Huck begins to have a change of heart, he gradually begins to distinguish between right and wrong, and conclusively, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma between the world's prejudice, of which he's grown up with, and the lessons Jim has taught him throughout the story about the evils of racism.

Rare edition with unique illustrations and elegant classic cream paper. Huckleberry Finn, rebel against school and church, casual inheritor of gold treasure, rafter of the Mississippi, and savior of Jim the runaway slave, is the archetypal American maverick. Fleeing the respectable society that wants to "sivilize" him, Huck Finn shoves off with Jim on a rhapsodic raft journey down the Mississippi River. As Huck learns about love, responsibility, and how to make moral choices, the trip becomes a metaphoric voyage through his own soul, culminating in the glorious moment when he decides to "go to hell" rather than return Jim to slavery. Mark Twain defined "classic" as "a book which people praise and don't read"; Huckleberry Finn is a happy exception to this rule. Includes unique illustrations.

Mark Twain's humorous account of his six years in Nevada, San Francisco, and the Sandwich Islands is a patchwork of personal anecdotes and tall tales, many of them told in the "vigorous new vernacular" of the West. Selling seventy five thousand copies within a year of its publication in 1872, Roughing It was greeted as a work of "wild, preposterous invention and sublime exaggeration" whose satiric humor made "pretension and false dignity ridiculous."

Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain's most brilliant and most personal nonfiction work. It is at once an affectionate evocation of the vital river life in the steamboat era and a melancholy reminiscence of its passing after the Civil War, a priceless collection of humorous anecdotes and folktales, and a unique glimpse into Twain's life before he began to write. Written in a prose style that has been hailed as among the greatest in English literature, Life on the Mississippi established Twain as not only the most popular humorist of his time but also America's most profound chronicler of the human comedy.

Rare edition with unique illustrations and elegant classic cream paper. Huckleberry Finn, rebel against school and church, casual inheritor of gold treasure, rafter of the Mississippi, and savior of Jim the runaway slave, is the archetypal American maverick. Fleeing the respectable society that wants to "sivilize" him, Huck Finn shoves off with Jim on a rhapsodic raft journey down the Mississippi River. As Huck learns about love, responsibility, and how to make moral choices, the trip becomes a metaphoric voyage through his own soul, culminating in the glorious moment when he decides to "go to hell" rather than return Jim to slavery. Mark Twain defined "classic" as "a book which people praise and don't read"; Huckleberry Finn is a happy exception to this rule. Includes unique illustrations.

Mark Twain has deserted the camp of the Shakespearites, and if he has not exactly committed himself to the cause of the Baconians, he comes very close to it. "Is Shakespeare Dead?" is a semi-serious consideration of the old controversy, and Ignatius Donnelly would rejoice at the arguments with which Mr. Clemens carries his points. After proving to his own satisfaction that one William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon never wrote Shakespeare's Works, for the very good reason that he could not have written them, Mark Twain concludes that perhaps Bacon did, or if Bacon did not, he could have written them if he had chosen to. All of which adds to the humor of the controversy and makes very interesting reading.

A Tramp Abroad is a work of travel literature, including a mixture of autobiography and fictional events, by American author Mark Twain, published in 1880. The book details a journey by the author, with his friend Harris (a character created for the book, and based on his closest friend, Joseph Twichell), through central and southern Europe. While the stated goal of the journey is to walk most of the way, the men find themselves using other forms of transport as they traverse the continent. As the two men make their way through Germany, the Alps, and Italy, they encounter situations made all the more humorous by their reactions to them. The narrator (Twain) plays the part of the American tourist of the time, believing that he understands all that he sees, but in reality understanding none of it.

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress is a travel book by American author Mark Twain published in 1869 which humorously chronicles what Twain called his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered vessel Quaker City (formerly USS Quaker City) through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American travelers in 1867. This book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it were a record of a solemn scientific expedition, it would have about it that gravity, that profundity, and that impressive incomprehensibility which are so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attractive. Yet notwithstanding it is only a record of a pic-nic, it has a purpose, which is to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him. I make small pretense of showing anyone how he ought to look at objects of interest beyond the sea-other books do that, and therefore, even if I were competent to do it, there is no need. I offer no apologies for any departures from the usual style of travel-writing that may be charged against me-for I think I have seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, whether wisely or not. In this volume I have used portions of letters which I wrote for the Daily Alta California, of San Francisco, the proprietors of that journal having waived their rights and given me the necessary permission. I have also inserted portions of several letters written for the New York Tribune and the New York Herald.

Although Mark Twain is revered as a master of American fiction, he was also known in his time for possessing a remarkable facility with the essay form. This collection of surprisingly insightful non-fiction and fiction pieces showcases Twain's astounding breadth as a writer. A must-read for fans of Twain's no-nonsense prose.

American humorist and literary master Mark Twain takes on tough issues like slavery, race, and the ugliness that can lurk beneath the surface of rural life in this novel. An interwoven tale of three families whose fates are thrown together in the aftermath of a murder, The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson is one of Twain's more serious works, although it is told with the same love of quirky misfits and wonderful observations that enliven books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Set in sixteenth-century England, The Prince and the Pauper follows two boys with vastly different lives: Tom Canty, the indigent child of an abusive, roustabout thief, and Prince Edward, the son of King Henry VIII and heir to the throne. One day, daydreaming while wandering near the king's palace, Canty catches sight of the prince-and nearly catches a brutal beating from the royal guards. Prince Edward commands them to stop and invites the street urchin into his immaculate home. Both fascinated by their strikingly similar appearances, the two boys craft a plot that could unwittingly upend the monarchy: to temporarily switch clothes, thereby swapping lives. Through first-hand experience-and a series of humorous follies-the two discover that neither life is as carefree as they expected. In The Prince and the Pauper, Twain elevates the classic theme of mistaken identity with his inimitable storytelling to create something uniquely American: a historical fable.

The only book that Mark Twain ever wrote in collaboration with another author, The Gilded Age is a novel that viciously and hilariously satirizes the greed, materialism, and corruption that characterized much of upper-class America in the nineteenth century. The title term-inspired by a line in Shakespeare's King John-has become synonymous with the excess of the era.