Mark Twain

"This book publishes, for the first time in full, the two most revealing of Mark Twain's private writings. Here he turns his mind to the daily life he shared with his wife Livy, their three daughters, a great many servants, and an imposing array of pets. These first-hand accounts display this gifted and loving family in the period of its flourishing. Mark Twain began to write "A Family Sketch" in response to the early death of his eldest daughter...

A collection of Mark Twain's topical writings, most of it in the early years of the twentieth century, and mainly, and most eloquently, concerned with the themes of social justice, of American civilization in its dawning age of imperialism (Europe had showed the way), and of the sinful nature of man in general. Some of these pieces aroused waves of indignant protest when they were published. (They are not innocent, happy, "cheerful" specimens of frontier...

From a boy, a raft, and a river flows a story of a friendship that defines the adventurous spirit of America.

"From Percival Everett-a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards-comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...

"Huck Finn and Jim float on their raft across a continuum of shifting seasons, feasting on a limitless supply of fish and stolen provisions, propelled by the currents of the mighty Mississippi from one adventure to the next. Launched into existence by Mark Twain in 1835, they have now been transported by Norman Lock through three vital, violent, and transformative centuries of American history. As time unfurls on the river's banks, they witness decisive...