Mark Twain Classics
1 primary work • 3 total works
Book 1
A marvelously vivid, many-sided portrait of America's frontier days.
Mark Twain's rambling took him all over the American West during teh 1860's. He prospected for gold and silver, speculated on timber and mining stocks, sailed to Hawaii, and worked for a succession of small newspapers. In Roughing It, his fictionalized account of these years, tall tales abound, as do sketches of unforgettable characters: desperadoes, vigilantes, newspapermen, Mormons, and prospectors.
Twain's Debt to the burlesque styling of regional humorists and his celebrated gift for accurately rendering regional speech are never more in evidence than here, but as Hamlin Hill points out in his introduction, Roughing It must also be read as Twain's renunciation of his footloose bachelorhood, his rejection of the mythic, romanticized image of the West, and his autopsy of the American dream.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Mark Twain's rambling took him all over the American West during teh 1860's. He prospected for gold and silver, speculated on timber and mining stocks, sailed to Hawaii, and worked for a succession of small newspapers. In Roughing It, his fictionalized account of these years, tall tales abound, as do sketches of unforgettable characters: desperadoes, vigilantes, newspapermen, Mormons, and prospectors.
Twain's Debt to the burlesque styling of regional humorists and his celebrated gift for accurately rendering regional speech are never more in evidence than here, but as Hamlin Hill points out in his introduction, Roughing It must also be read as Twain's renunciation of his footloose bachelorhood, his rejection of the mythic, romanticized image of the West, and his autopsy of the American dream.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Three detective stories by Mark Twain with an introduction by Walter Mosely, the modern master of mystery writing, and an afterword by noted scholar Lillian S. Robinson. "The Stolen White Elephant" is a broad farce mocking the self-proclaimed omniscience of many fictional detectives, told entirely in the form of a series of ridiculous telegraphs. Revolving around the theft of a literal white elephant, the gift of the King of Siam, this manifestly absurd story is nevertheless modeled after the real life efforts of a blundering New York Police Department to recover the corpse of one Alexander T. Stewart, stolen from his family vault in 1878. "A Double-Barreled Detective Story" is another delightful spoof of the mystery genre, then in its infancy, this time introducing the reader to Sherlock Holmes as he has never been seen before or since. Far from his usual elegant London haunts, the great detective is caught up in a melodramatic murder mystery of love, betrayal, and vengeance in a rough California mining town.
Finally, in "Tom Sawyer, Detective," Twain gives us a lively adventure featuring Tom Sawyer as the great detective and Huck Finn as his Watson, investigating diamond thefts and murders back in Hannibal. Three delightful stories, all with Twain's trademark wit and sense of fun.
Finally, in "Tom Sawyer, Detective," Twain gives us a lively adventure featuring Tom Sawyer as the great detective and Huck Finn as his Watson, investigating diamond thefts and murders back in Hannibal. Three delightful stories, all with Twain's trademark wit and sense of fun.
Eve's Diary is a comic short story by Mark Twain. It was first published in the 1905 Christmas issue of the magazine Harper's Bazaar, and in book format in June 1906 by Harper and Brothers publishing house. It is written in the style of a diary kept by the first woman in the Judeao-Christian creation story, Eve, and is claimed to be "translated from the original MS." The "plot" of this novel is the first-person account of Eve from her creation up to her burial by, her mate, Adam, including meeting and getting to know Adam, and exploring the world around her, Eden. The story then jumps 40 years into the future after the Fall and expulsion from Eden.