Mark Twain
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When Mark Twain's daughter Susie wrote a letter to Santa Claus, her father wrote back, signing Santa's name. Charming and heartwarming, this version of the short letter includes humorous descriptions of Santa's efforts to deliver the requested toys to the Twain household, as well as instructions to meet Santa at an appointed time outside for items that can't fit down the chimney. Written in 1875, Twain's daughter would tragically die of spinal meningitis...
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The humorist takes on the controversy over the authorship of Shakespeare's plays in this 1909 essay, one of the last published in his lifetime. Twain argues that the man from Stratford could not have written the plays, because he lacked the education and was not famous in his home town, as Twain was in Hannibal, Missouri.
23) Merry Tales
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At the heart of this collection of seven stories is the masterful tale "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed." Part autobiographical account of Twain's adventures in the Civil War and part fiction, the story is by turns brimming with satire and a sober indictment of the cruel realities of war. Also included are "A Curious Experience," the account of a boy whose fantasy world collides with the real world during war time, and "The Invalid's...
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These short stories and sketches were written in 1870-1871 for The Galaxy and The Buffalo Express and made up out of sixteen various tales. The Curious Republic of Gondor is probably the most memorable of the group. He relates that education and prosperity influence the individual citizen's political clout. As revolutionary as this may first sound, either the conception or the possible negative reaction from his reader, he neglected the mention of...
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Mark Twain's Letters - Volume 1 (1835-1866)
"Don't scold me, Livy—let me pay my due homage to your worth; let me honor you above all women; let me love you with a love that knows no doubt, no question—for you are my world, my life, my pride, my all of earth that is worth the having." These are the words of Samuel Clemens in love. Playful and reverential, jubilant and despondent, they are filled with tributes to his fiancée Olivia Langdon and...
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The classic, partly fictional travelogue through late-nineteenth-century Europe by the great American satirist and author of Innocents Abroad.
Based on true events-embellished with fictional tales and a made-up travel partner-Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad chronicles his meandering journey through Germany, the French and Swiss Alps, and Northern Italy. Attempting to make the trip by foot, Twain ventures down the Neckar river by raft, ascends Mont Blanc...
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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...
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"Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" is an essay by Mark Twain, written as a satire and criticism of the writings of James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought him fame and fortune. Twain draws on examples from The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder from Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. The...
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The old godless captain Stormfield believed neither in God, nor in hell, nor in paradise, nor in hell. Imagine his surprise when, after his death, flying through the bottomless depths of space, he nevertheless arrived in paradise. He was even more surprised when he became acquainted with the local order – it was too painfully different from the stories about the paradise of priests on Earth...
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American life comes under the scrutiny of Mark Twains wit in this delightful collection of short stories. Here, he comments on politics, education, the media, religion, and literature. The true subject of Twains satire and burlesque is that strangest of all animals, the human being. In his novels, travel narratives, stories, essays, and sketches, Twain exposes such a variety of human foibles that one is left either laughing at the folly of human enterprise,...
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This volume gathers eight of Mark Twain's most-loved humorous stories and features "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"-the career-making story of a visit by an inveterate gambler to an old mining camp in California's Gold Country. The undisputed master of the tall tale, Twain's legendary deadpan delivery and his ability to pile on and compound the hilarity make his stories as uproarious as they are singular. His humor also reveals a...
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What Is Man? is a short story by American writer Mark Twain, published in 1906. It is a dialogue between a Young Man and an Old Man regarding the nature of man. The title refers to Psalm 8:4, which begins "what is man, that you are mindful of him...". It involves ideas of determinism and free will, as well as of psychological egoism. The Old Man asserts that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more, driven by the singular purpose to satisfy...
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This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. American life comes under the scrutiny of Mark Twain's wit in this delightful collection of short stories. Here, he comments on politics, education, the media, religion, and literature. The true subject of Twain's satire and burlesque is that strangest of all animals, the human being. In his novels, travel narratives, stories, essays, and sketches, Twain exposes such...
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All of Mark Twain's classic American adventure stories featuring his most beloved characters, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, are brought together in the Ultimate Tom Sawyer and Friends Collection. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom, Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Becky find themselves in amusing and sometimes dangerous adventures. The friends' mischief continues in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Detective, and Tom Sawyer Abroad.
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In this 1871 memoir- drawing from the life experiences that also produced Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn-Twain tells how he achieved his boyhood dream of navigating a steamboat along the treacherous, ever-changing banks of the great river. Written for William Dean Howells's Atlantic magazine, this is the original, shorter version of Life on the Mississippi. This edition also contains the story "A Literary Nightmare."
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"The Diaries and Adam and Eve" by Mark Twain was originally published as two separate stories and were later combined at Twain's request. "Extracts from Adam's Diary" was published as a stand-alone book in 1904. In 1905, "Eve's Diary" was published in the Christmas issue of "Harper's Bazaar" and then as a book in 1906. With his signature wit and charm, Twain tells the separate stories of humanity's biblical ancestors from the perspective of each in...
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Published in 1897, this collection of essays includes Twain's scathing demolishment of the literary pretensions of James Fenimore Cooper, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," as well as equally amusing if lighter fare like "The Private History of the 'Jumping Frog' Story" and the title essay, an insightful description of his own methods.
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Excerpt: "It was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winter's day. The town of Eastport, in the state of Maine, lay buried under a deep snow that was newly fallen. The customary bustle in the streets was wanting. One could look long distances down them and see nothing but a dead-white emptiness, with silence to match. Of course, I do not mean that you could, see the silence, no, you could only hear it. The sidewalks were merely long, deep ditches,...