Mark Twain
*Deidre Carmody
The New York Times
Now, in this extraordinary literary uncovering, the original first half of Mark Twain's American masterpiece is available for the first time ever to a general readership. Lost for more than a century, the passages reinstated in this edition reveal a novel even more controversial than the version Twain published in 1885 and provide an invaluable insight into his creative process....
10) Roughing it
Before his literary career took off and he emerged as one of America's foremost men of letters, Mark Twain worked as a steamboat pilot in the antebellum South and Midwest. This fascinating account offers a brief history of commercial boating in the period and a probing, insightful, and eminently entertaining look at Twain's own experiences.
Known as one of American literature's finest humor writers, Mark Twain took on the travel genre in the series of essays, sketches, and observations collected in The Innocents Abroad. From classic fish-out-of-water shenanigans to keen insight into the differences between American culture and its European and Middle Eastern counterparts, this volume is an engaging and rewarding read.
Tom Sawyer, Detective follows Twain's popular novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Tom Sawyer Abroad. In this novel, Tom turns detective, trying to solve a murder. Twain plays with and celebrates the detective novel, wildly popular at the time. This novel, like the others, is told through the first-person narrative of Huck Finn.
Though Mark Twain is best remembered as perhaps the quintessential American humor writer, he was also a keen observer and critic of cultural and social trends. In this vein, he undertook a book-length discussion and analysis of Christian Science and New Thought, both of which enjoyed immense popularity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States. The controversial text was originally rejected by Twain's publisher, a gesture
...Though he is best known as a humorist, famed American author Mark Twain also tried his hand at social satires, to much critical and popular acclaim. In The American Claimant, Twain provides a thematic follow-up to his previous novel, The Prince and the Pauper, with a tale of an American con artist and a British aristocrat who essentially switch places and reveal the unsavory aspects of each lifestyle and social milieu.
Tom Sawyer Abroad sees Tom, Huck Finn and Jim board a futuristic hot air balloon bound for Africa, in a parody of the popular science fiction/travel adventure stories of the time. In Africa they encounter wild animals and immense man-made wonders. The novel is narrated by Huck Finn.