Mark Twain

Mark Twain's darkly comic short classic set in the antebellum South stands as a literary condemnation of slavery and racial inequality. Each enriched classic edition includes: A concise introduction that gives readers important background information. A chronology of the author's life and work. A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context. An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations....

This beloved historical satire, played out in two very different socio-economic worlds of 16th-century England, centers around the lives of two boys born in London on the same day: Edward, Prince of Wales, and Tom Canty, a street beggar. During a chance encounter, they realize they are identical and, as a lark, decide to exchange garments and roles -- a situation that briefly, but drastically, alters the lives of both youngsters. Brimming with gentle...

"Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has been enjoyed by generations of readers across the world since its publication in 1876. With its humorous glimpses into life in nineteenth-century, small-town America, this novel has provided unique social commentary that continues to be discussed in classrooms today. Tom Sawyer, a mischievous boy growing up in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, is constantly getting in and out of...

"Based on a series of letters Mark Twain wrote from Europe for San Francisco and New York newspapers as a roving correspondent, The Innocents Abroad (1869) is a caricature of the sentimental travel books popular in the mid-nineteenth century. Mark Twain's fresh and humorous perspective on hallowed European landmarks lacked reverence for the past, and was as mocking about American manners (including his own) as it was about European attitudes. Twain...

A representation of the American humorist's works features an eclectic mix of writings, including "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, " "The Stolen White Elephant, " and the novella The Mysterious Stranger.

Tom Sawyer Detective is a novel by Mark Twain. It is a sequel to Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and a prequel to Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894). Tom Sawyer attempts to solve a mysterious murder in this burlesque of the immensely popular detective novels of the time. Like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the story is told using the first-person narrative voice of Huck Finn. In 1909, Danish schoolmaster Valdemar Thoresen claimed,...

En el año 1590, en una pequeña aldea austríaca llamada Eseldorf, tres jóvenes que jugaban en el bosque se encontraron con un misterioso forastero. Cuando le preguntaron su nombre, con sencillez el mismo respondió: Satanás. El forastero es un ángel sabio que, por curiosidad y diversión, investiga el comportamiento de las personas. Así, con encanto les muestra a los niños la cruda realidad del tiempo y la verdadera naturaleza de la especie...

Christian Science is Mark Twain's razor-sharp attack on a popular movement which was sweeping the country at the turn of the 20th century. One of the tenets of Christian Science is the healing of physical illness through prayer. Having recently lost a daughter to meningitis, Twain responded angrily to the notion that pain and sickness were easily surmounted. His deep-seated iconoclasm also caused him to take aim at Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of...

Fearing for the safety of her young child's life, a young slave called Roxy swaps her light-skinned baby with that of her master. Her master's child grows up as a slave, while Roxy's child grows up as a white man called "Tom" who becomes cruel and ends up leading a life crime. The book is a cutting indictment of a society based on racial prejudice and slavery brimming with Twain's characteristic wit and irony. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835—1910),...

The Satirical and Bitter Side of Mark Twain. "Man is made of dirt, I saw him made. I am not made of dirt. Man is a museum of diseases, a home of impurities, he comes today and is gone tomorrow, he begins as dirt and departs as stench. I am of the aristocracy of the Imperishables. And man has the Moral Sense. You understand? He has the Moral Sense. That would seem to be difference enough between us, all by itself." The Mysterious Stranger and Other...