Great Short Works of Mark Twain

Front Cover
Harper Collins, 2009 M03 17 - 400 pages

Selected short works of humor and criticism by a revered American master

Beloved by millions, Mark Twain is the quintessential American writer. More than anyone else, his blend of skepticism, caustic wit and sharp prose defines a certain American mythos. While his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is still taught to nearly everyone who attends school and is considered by many to be the Great American Novel, Twain’s shorter stories and criticisms have unequalled style and bite.

In a review that’s less than kind to the writing of James Fenimore Cooper, Twain writes: “Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred handier things to step on, but that wouldn’t satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can’t do it, go and borrow one.” It’s difficult to imagine anyone else writing in quite this style, though many have tried, which is why Twain’s legacy only continues to grow.

The collection includes 20 works, including:

  • Old Times on the Mississippi
  • The Mysterious Stranger
  • The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
  • The Jumping Frog
  • Jim Baker's Bluejay Yarn
  • A True Story
  • Letter to the Earth
  • The War Prayer


From inside the book

Contents

OLD TIMES THE MISSISSIPPI The Atlantic
1
THE JUMPING FROG Sketches New and Old
79
THE GREAT LANDSLIDE CASE Roughing It
96
ACCIDENT INSURANCEETC Mark Twains
111
THE STORY OF A SPEECH Mark Twains Speeches
129
THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAMPAIGN THAT
144
LETTER TO THE EARTH Letters from the Earth
163
HOW TO TELL A STORY The 30000 Bequest
182
TO THE PERSON SITTING IN DARKNESS Europe
201
THE WAR PRAYER Europe and Elsewhere
218
THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG
231
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
278
A Chronology
367
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 85 - I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him — he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, " Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pound ! " and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man — he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him.
Page 1 - WHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village* on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns ; the first negro minstrel show that ever came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life...
Page 83 - Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump.
Page 85 - So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to himself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot — filled him pretty near up to his chin — and set him on the floor. "Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says: "'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l...
Page 378 - Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leather Stocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.
Page 95 - Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for one thing, I should judge — he can outjump ary frog in Calaveras County.
Page 180 - verbal" for "oral"; "precision" for "facility"; "phenomena" for "marvels"; "necessary" for "predetermined"; "unsophisticated" for "primitive"; "preparation" for "expectancy"; "rebuked" for "subdued"; "dependent on" for "resulting from"; "fact" for "condition"; "fact" for "conjecture"; "precaution
Page 81 - Any way that suited the other man would suit him — any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky ; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance ; there couldn't be no solitry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you.
Page 233 - I asked for help — in the dark; I was ashamed to beg in the light. I begged of the right man. He gave me twenty dollars — that is to say, he gave me life, as I considered it. He also gave me fortune; for out of that money I have made myself rich at the gaming-table. And finally, a remark which he made to me has remained with me to this day, and has at last conquered me; and in conquering has saved the remnant of my morals: I shall gamble no more.

About the author (2009)

Mark Twain, who was born Samuel L. Clemens in Missouri in 1835, wrote some of the most enduring works of literature in the English language, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was his last completed book—and, by his own estimate, his best. Its acquisition by Harper & Brothers allowed Twain to stave off bankruptcy. He died in 1910.

Bibliographic information