He
describes, with great affection, the science of navigating the
ever-changing Mississippi River. In the second half, the book
describes Twain's return, many years later, to travel on a
steamboat from St. Louis to New Orleans. He describes the
competition from railroads, the new, large cities, and his
observations on greed, gullibility, tragedy, and bad architecture.
He also tells some stories that are most likely tall tales.
Simultaneously published in 1883 in the U.S. and in England, it is
said to be the first book composed on a typewriter. (Source:
Wikipedia)
Mark Twain
The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (often shortened to Huck Finn) is
a novel written by American humorist Mark Twain. It is commonly
used and accounted as one of the first Great American Novels. It is
also one of the first major American novels written using Local
Color Regionalism, or vernacular, told in the first person by the
eponymous Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer and
hero of three other Mark Twain books.
The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places
along the Mississippi River. By satirizing Southern antebellum
society that was already a quarter-century in the past by the time
of publication, the book is an often scathing look at entrenched
attitudes, particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huck and
his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on
their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and
freedom in all of American literature.
Mark Twain
The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, is a popular 1876
novel about a young boy growing up in the antebellum South on the
Mississippi River in the fictional town of St. Petersburg,
Missouri.
Mark Twain
Roughing
It
Roughing It follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the
Wild West during the years 1861–1867. After a brief stint as a
Confederate cavalry militiaman, he joined his brother Orion
Clemens, who had been appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory,
on a stagecoach journey west. Twain consulted his brother's diary
to refresh his memory and borrowed heavily from his active
imagination for many stories in the novel.
Roughing It illustrates many of Twain's early adventures,
including a visit to Salt Lake City, gold and silver prospecting,
real-estate speculation, and his beginnings as a writer.
In this memoir, readers can see examples of Twain's rough-hewn
humor, which would become a staple of his writing in his later
books, such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Mark Twain
Tom
Sawyer Abroad
Tom Sawyer Abroad is a novel by Mark Twain published in 1894. It
features Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in a parody of Jules
Verne-esque adventure stories. In the story, Tom, Huck, and Jim set
sail to Africa in a futuristic hot air balloon, where they survive
encounters with lions, robbers, and fleas to see some of the
world's greatest wonders, including the Pyramids and the Sphinx.
Like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, Detective, the
story is told using the first-person narrative voice of Huck
Finn.
Mark Twain
Tom
Sawyer, Detective
Tom Sawyer, Detective is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain. It is a
sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1884), and 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 the two
preceding novels, the story is told using the first-person
narrative voice of Huck Finn.
Mark Twain
The
$30,000 Bequest and other short stories
Mark Twain
The
War Prayer
Written by Mark Twain during the Philippine-American War in the
first decade of the twentieth century, The War Prayer tells of a
patriotic church service held to send the town's young men off to
war. During the service, a stranger enters and addresses the
gathering. He tells the patriotic crowd that their prayers for
victory are double-edged-by praying for victory they are also
praying for the destruction of the enemy... for the destruction of
human life.
Mark Twain
The
Jumping Frog
Mark Twain's "The Jumping Frog : In English, then in French,
then clawed back into the civilized language once more by patient
unremunerated toil" (1865), also known as "The Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras County", "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County" and "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog."
Containing the original story (in english), a french translation
which was published in la Revue des Deux Mondes and which Twain
finds to be a travesty of the original text, and Twain's
re-translation of the french back into english, word for word (this
is where things degenerate). A masterpiece of babelfishien nonsense
dating from well before babelfish was even a gleam in the binary
code of its creator (1903). Best appreciated if you can read both
French and English, but even if you skip the french version it's
truly brilliant. If you have ever translated random text using
babelfish just because it's funny, don't miss this book.
As good old Samuel Clemens himself put it in his foreword "I
cannot speak the French language, but I can translate very well,
though not fast, I being self-educated."
Mark Twain
Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc
Mark Twain's work on Joan of Arc is titled in full Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte who is
identified further as Joan's page and secretary. The work is
fictionally presented as a translation from the manuscript by Jean
Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, "Freely
Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the
Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of
France".
De Conte is a fictionalized version of Joan of Arc's page Louis de
Contes, and provides narrative unity to the story. He is presented
as an individual who was with Joan during the three major phases of
her life - as a youth in Domremy, as the commander of Charles' army
on military campaign, and as a defendant at the trial in Rouen. The
book is presented as a translation by Alden of de Conte's memoirs,
written in his later years for the benefit of his descendants.

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