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Great Short Works of Mark Twain
Selected works of humour and criticism by a revered American master.
Beloved by millions, Mark Twain is the quintessential American writer. More than anyone else, his blend of scepticism, caustic wit and sharp prose defines a certain American mythos. While his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is still taught to anyone 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, which is why Twain's legacy only continues to grow.
400 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1967
139 people are currently reading
862 people want to read
About the author
Mark Twain
8,697 books18.6k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
August 3, 2024
Best is an arbitrary word, no doubt. And Mark Twain wrote so many stories, so many excellent stories, so many of which are not here. Yet this collection, The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain undoubtedly contains absolute gems, several stories that are my favorites among his multitudinous tales, that I think it absolutely deserves the title.
Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog: The story that was Mark Twain’s first great success, (aka The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County) it consists of a shaggy dog tale about a notorious gambler and his frog, as related by a loquacious Western barkeep to the Eastern narrator. Something of its original humor is lost to the passage of times and changing of tastes.
3 ⭐️
The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn’t Come to Grief: Despite the dire warnings of the Sunday School papers, the Bad Little Boy avoids punishment and consequences, while he thrives and prospers. Sure this tale was much more amusing within its contemporary cultural context.
3 ⭐️
Cannibalism in the Cars: A gentleman on a train relates a fantastic tale of being snowbound on a train where, to survive, the passengers were obliged to eat their companions. The method of picking their meals was an orderly political process, with rules of order, persuasion, and voting. This is a hilarious, sideways satire on American politics.
4 1/2 ⭐️
Journalism in Tennessee: The author employs hilarious hyperbole to sketch the dangerous and daunting blood sport of Tennessee journalism, as here, in these instructions from his editor for holding down the office while he steps out: ”Jones will be here at 3:00, cowhide him. Gillespie will call earlier, perhaps. Throw him out of the window. Ferguson will be along about 4:00. Kill him. That is all for today, I believe. If you have any odd time, you might write a blistering article on the police. Give the chief inspector rats. The cowhide is under the table, weapons in the drawer, ammunition there in the corner, lint and bandages up there in the pidgin holes.”
4 ⭐️
The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper: The Sunday School papers of his youth provide much material for Mark Twain, both in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and in this and other short stories. The joke is that the good little boy who studied those Sunday School books is sadly disappointed to find that things don’t work out as promised. The humor suffers from being dated to its time.
2 1/2 ⭐️
How I Edited an Agricultural Paper: When totally ignorant of a subject, bluff confidently: ”Concerning the pumpkin: this berry is a favorite with the natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruitcake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the north, but the custom of planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin, as a shade tree, is a failure.”
4 ⭐️
Political Economy: A pompous scribbler on political economy, hopelessly naive on practical matters, allows himself to be hornswoggled by a lightning rod salesman into completely festooning his house in lightning rod at ruinous expense. When a storm comes the pyrotechnics about his house are dangerously awesome.
4 1/2 ⭐️
A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It: A powerful and poignant tale, related by an old black woman, of the horrors of slavery and family separation.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut: The author relates a battling his own misshapen, shrunken conscience — literally.
3 1/2 ⭐️
Punch, Brothers, Punch!: ”Why, what a captivating jingle it is! It is almost music.” Mark Twain’s paean to the insidious power of an ear worm. I first read it in 1976, and Punch in the presence of the pass-ing-jair has lived somewhere in my head ever since.
4 1/2 ⭐️
Jim Baker’s Blue-Jay Yarn: ”You may call a Jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure, because he’s got feathers on him and don’t belong to no church.
An old miner tells a tale of a bluejay confounded by a bottomless hole.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Stolen White Elephant: A ludicrous satire parodying a detective tale. An over the top tall tale where bumbling ineptitude is praised as high talent.
4 ⭐️
The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm: An amusing tale of being utterly confounded and frustrated by the technology of a burglar alarm, complete with the typical Mark Twain hyperbole.
4 ⭐️
The Private History of a Campaign that Failed: A humorous sketch, (partially fictionalized autobiography) that captured the unreality of war’s beginning. Young men, their heads full of romance and chivalry, set out to war as on a lark. It’s all a grand adventure to these boys, until they encounter their first minor difficulties and inconveniences. The tale takes a darker turn when they encounter “the enemy.”
4 ⭐️
Extracts From Adam’s Diary: ”I find that she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my property.” Twain’s imagined diary entries for humanities legendary parent are gently mocking, occasionally chuckle-worthy, and end with sincere sweetness.
4 ⭐️
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg: One of Mark Twain’s pitch dark, cynical late works. Hadleyburg was a mean town, but one that reveled in self-righteous glory in the town’s reputation for incorruptible honesty. A vengeful prank from one seeking revenge reveals its staggering hypocrisy.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The $30,000 Bequest: A distant, unpleasant relative promises to a young family a modestly large bequest, loaded with strangely restrictive conditions. Long before the money is received, the silly husband and wife obsess over imaginations of investing and spending, taking it quite as seriously as if the money was to hand. They make and spend fortunes in the air castles of their imaginations. It feels like a light tale, but the story has a surprisingly somber core.
3 1/2 ⭐️
Eve’s Diary: ”I am the first wife, and in the last wife I shall be repeated”
At Eve’s grave — Adam; “Wheresoever she was, there was Eden” This may be the sweetest story Mark Twain wrote.
5 ⭐️
Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven: ”They go and sing and play, just about one day, and that’s the last you’ll ever see them in the choir. They don’t need anybody to tell them that sorta thing wouldn’t make a Heaven, at least not a Heaven that a sane man could stand a week and remain sane.”
A lampoon of the After Life, Mark Twain style.
3 ⭐️
The Second Advent: Mark Twain boldly and blasphemously satires the core of Christian belief, calling it out as ridiculous by placing it in contemporary times.
”If the ordinary prayers of a nation were answered during a single day the universal misery, misfortune, destruction and desolation which would ensue would constitute a cataclysm which would take its place side by side with the deluge, and so remain in history to the end of time.
4 ⭐️
War Prayer: Full of righteous wrath, this is the work of an old time prophet, not a humorist. Written in response to the brutal, imperialist war of conquest against the Philippines, a war full of atrocities committed in the name of God and country. His words lay bare the viciousness of his countrymen's actions.
Twain didn’t proclaim his War Prayer to his countrymen. He wrote: ”I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth."
It was published posthumously.
5 ⭐️
How To Tell a Story: A credible description of just how the author told a story and why and how it works.
”There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind — the humorous.”
”The humorous story is American. The comic story is English. The witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling, the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.”
4 1/2 ⭐️
Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog: The story that was Mark Twain’s first great success, (aka The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County) it consists of a shaggy dog tale about a notorious gambler and his frog, as related by a loquacious Western barkeep to the Eastern narrator. Something of its original humor is lost to the passage of times and changing of tastes.
3 ⭐️
The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn’t Come to Grief: Despite the dire warnings of the Sunday School papers, the Bad Little Boy avoids punishment and consequences, while he thrives and prospers. Sure this tale was much more amusing within its contemporary cultural context.
3 ⭐️
Cannibalism in the Cars: A gentleman on a train relates a fantastic tale of being snowbound on a train where, to survive, the passengers were obliged to eat their companions. The method of picking their meals was an orderly political process, with rules of order, persuasion, and voting. This is a hilarious, sideways satire on American politics.
4 1/2 ⭐️
Journalism in Tennessee: The author employs hilarious hyperbole to sketch the dangerous and daunting blood sport of Tennessee journalism, as here, in these instructions from his editor for holding down the office while he steps out: ”Jones will be here at 3:00, cowhide him. Gillespie will call earlier, perhaps. Throw him out of the window. Ferguson will be along about 4:00. Kill him. That is all for today, I believe. If you have any odd time, you might write a blistering article on the police. Give the chief inspector rats. The cowhide is under the table, weapons in the drawer, ammunition there in the corner, lint and bandages up there in the pidgin holes.”
4 ⭐️
The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper: The Sunday School papers of his youth provide much material for Mark Twain, both in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and in this and other short stories. The joke is that the good little boy who studied those Sunday School books is sadly disappointed to find that things don’t work out as promised. The humor suffers from being dated to its time.
2 1/2 ⭐️
How I Edited an Agricultural Paper: When totally ignorant of a subject, bluff confidently: ”Concerning the pumpkin: this berry is a favorite with the natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruitcake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the north, but the custom of planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin, as a shade tree, is a failure.”
4 ⭐️
Political Economy: A pompous scribbler on political economy, hopelessly naive on practical matters, allows himself to be hornswoggled by a lightning rod salesman into completely festooning his house in lightning rod at ruinous expense. When a storm comes the pyrotechnics about his house are dangerously awesome.
4 1/2 ⭐️
A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It: A powerful and poignant tale, related by an old black woman, of the horrors of slavery and family separation.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut: The author relates a battling his own misshapen, shrunken conscience — literally.
3 1/2 ⭐️
Punch, Brothers, Punch!: ”Why, what a captivating jingle it is! It is almost music.” Mark Twain’s paean to the insidious power of an ear worm. I first read it in 1976, and Punch in the presence of the pass-ing-jair has lived somewhere in my head ever since.
4 1/2 ⭐️
Jim Baker’s Blue-Jay Yarn: ”You may call a Jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure, because he’s got feathers on him and don’t belong to no church.
An old miner tells a tale of a bluejay confounded by a bottomless hole.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Stolen White Elephant: A ludicrous satire parodying a detective tale. An over the top tall tale where bumbling ineptitude is praised as high talent.
4 ⭐️
The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm: An amusing tale of being utterly confounded and frustrated by the technology of a burglar alarm, complete with the typical Mark Twain hyperbole.
4 ⭐️
The Private History of a Campaign that Failed: A humorous sketch, (partially fictionalized autobiography) that captured the unreality of war’s beginning. Young men, their heads full of romance and chivalry, set out to war as on a lark. It’s all a grand adventure to these boys, until they encounter their first minor difficulties and inconveniences. The tale takes a darker turn when they encounter “the enemy.”
4 ⭐️
Extracts From Adam’s Diary: ”I find that she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my property.” Twain’s imagined diary entries for humanities legendary parent are gently mocking, occasionally chuckle-worthy, and end with sincere sweetness.
4 ⭐️
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg: One of Mark Twain’s pitch dark, cynical late works. Hadleyburg was a mean town, but one that reveled in self-righteous glory in the town’s reputation for incorruptible honesty. A vengeful prank from one seeking revenge reveals its staggering hypocrisy.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The $30,000 Bequest: A distant, unpleasant relative promises to a young family a modestly large bequest, loaded with strangely restrictive conditions. Long before the money is received, the silly husband and wife obsess over imaginations of investing and spending, taking it quite as seriously as if the money was to hand. They make and spend fortunes in the air castles of their imaginations. It feels like a light tale, but the story has a surprisingly somber core.
3 1/2 ⭐️
Eve’s Diary: ”I am the first wife, and in the last wife I shall be repeated”
At Eve’s grave — Adam; “Wheresoever she was, there was Eden” This may be the sweetest story Mark Twain wrote.
5 ⭐️
Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven: ”They go and sing and play, just about one day, and that’s the last you’ll ever see them in the choir. They don’t need anybody to tell them that sorta thing wouldn’t make a Heaven, at least not a Heaven that a sane man could stand a week and remain sane.”
A lampoon of the After Life, Mark Twain style.
3 ⭐️
The Second Advent: Mark Twain boldly and blasphemously satires the core of Christian belief, calling it out as ridiculous by placing it in contemporary times.
”If the ordinary prayers of a nation were answered during a single day the universal misery, misfortune, destruction and desolation which would ensue would constitute a cataclysm which would take its place side by side with the deluge, and so remain in history to the end of time.
4 ⭐️
War Prayer: Full of righteous wrath, this is the work of an old time prophet, not a humorist. Written in response to the brutal, imperialist war of conquest against the Philippines, a war full of atrocities committed in the name of God and country. His words lay bare the viciousness of his countrymen's actions.
Twain didn’t proclaim his War Prayer to his countrymen. He wrote: ”I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth."
It was published posthumously.
5 ⭐️
How To Tell a Story: A credible description of just how the author told a story and why and how it works.
”There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind — the humorous.”
”The humorous story is American. The comic story is English. The witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling, the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.”
4 1/2 ⭐️
August 10, 2020
This is a review of the audio book read by Robin Field.
There are a couple of old favorites in this collection, one in particular for all you jumping frog fans, and some that are new, at least to me.
They are read masterfully by Robin Field in a style that makes you imagine you are sitting in a general store somewhere, around an old time coal stove, being regaled by Sam Clemens himself.
This was a great one for me to start knitting a new sweater for Lambie to.
There are a couple of old favorites in this collection, one in particular for all you jumping frog fans, and some that are new, at least to me.
They are read masterfully by Robin Field in a style that makes you imagine you are sitting in a general store somewhere, around an old time coal stove, being regaled by Sam Clemens himself.
This was a great one for me to start knitting a new sweater for Lambie to.
June 30, 2011
A mix of comedy and some hard lessons about life, this was a fascinating set of short stories. Some of the stories seemed to be way ahead of their time with the eccentric sense of humor showing up way back in the 1860s. There was one story about a crazy newspaper editor that wanted to write stories about some of the inhabitants of the town to make them all sound like terrible people. It sounded just a little like some of William S. Burroughs works. The diaries of Adam and Eve were funny because he portrayed them as being very human with lots of funny observations about each other and the world around them. It was funny to read about how they would observe animals and other people for the first time starting off in life as adults with great vocabularies. I like how Adam's entries on Sundays were always "Pulled through." Then the diaries would eventually flash forward way into the future and the change in the person was really powerful. There were a few stories about the perils of money. There was even one or two stories that were very dark. I loved the sarcasm about the guy who bought all the lightning rods just to make the salesman go away and how it attracted terrible thunderstorms to their house and scared away all the neighbors. This collection is a great way to appreciate Mark Twain's quirky sense of humor and his wisdom about human nature. He must have met lots of crazy people over the course of his life.
February 16, 2021
For years, my mom has sung the praises of Mark Twain. I’ve read the ones “everyone has”: Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn. But Twain’s catalog is vast. How have I not read Roughing It? Especially when I grew up in Tahoe! How have I not read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court? And The Prince and the Pauper? Geez. I’m slacking!
I’ve decided 2021 is going to be my year to chip away at Twain’s long publication list. I don’t know what made me start with the short stories but it was the perfect i reminder of the dry wit and sneaky commentary that Twain does so well. So many times, I snort-laughed … I nearly hurt myself. Robin Fields narration of these stories was perfection. I have a few more of the short stories I can listen to then I’ll be cracking open the paper book to read those that weren’t narrated.
And, I do think I’ll be singing the Punch, Brother, Punch jingle forever & ever. Talk about an ear worm that won’t go away: “Conductor, when you receive a fare, punch in the presence of the passenger (say pass-in-jair). A blue trip-slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip-slip for a six-cent fare, a pink trip-slip for a three-cent fare. Punch in the presence of the passenger (say pass-in-jair). Chorus: Punch, brothers, punch with care. Punch in the presence of the passenger (say pass-in-jair).”
I’ve decided 2021 is going to be my year to chip away at Twain’s long publication list. I don’t know what made me start with the short stories but it was the perfect i reminder of the dry wit and sneaky commentary that Twain does so well. So many times, I snort-laughed … I nearly hurt myself. Robin Fields narration of these stories was perfection. I have a few more of the short stories I can listen to then I’ll be cracking open the paper book to read those that weren’t narrated.
And, I do think I’ll be singing the Punch, Brother, Punch jingle forever & ever. Talk about an ear worm that won’t go away: “Conductor, when you receive a fare, punch in the presence of the passenger (say pass-in-jair). A blue trip-slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip-slip for a six-cent fare, a pink trip-slip for a three-cent fare. Punch in the presence of the passenger (say pass-in-jair). Chorus: Punch, brothers, punch with care. Punch in the presence of the passenger (say pass-in-jair).”
January 9, 2019
This may have some short stories I might enjoy, but I will have to find another format to find out. The Kindle format is without Contents, forcing reader to wander aimlessly page by page until they reach the next story without knowing what is ahead. Now that is a bore.
Or...in Mark Twain's words: "The secret of getting ahead is getting started."...
and now I can concentrate on "Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough."
Or FINALLY-
"It's better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
Or...in Mark Twain's words: "The secret of getting ahead is getting started."...
and now I can concentrate on "Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough."
Or FINALLY-
"It's better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
September 21, 2009
Some of these stories were really great. I didn't read every story, but here are some of my favorites. If you can only read one, I would go with "The Stolen White Elephant". It is absurd, ridiculous, and therefore hysterical. I also loved, "The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm", "Eve's Diary", "Extracts from Adam's Diary", and "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg". If you read, "Punch, Brothers, Punch", beware that you run the risk of having it forever stuck in your head...
February 5, 2022
the last two short stories were a bit.... interesting? unsatisfying? above my comprehension? too deep for me to understand probably. i enjoyed them all v much though ⭐
October 25, 2009
A lot of great stuff here; I especially loved "Old Times on the Mississippi," which shored up my recent ambition to become a riverboat pilot (first inspired by John McPhee's riverboating piece in The New Yorker). "The Jumping Frog" was a lot funnier than I remembered, once I got to the stuff about the dog and "Flies, Dan'l, flies!"--and was capped by the French translation and Twain's indignant French-to-English retranslation--absolutely French As She Is Spoke. Then on the subway I discovered that I'm a laugh-out-loud sucker for a glass eye joke. (OK, not funny! But there I am.) And there are all the funny layers of "The Story of a Speech," though I think he got me with the first Longfellow joke. But then...mature Twain got a-pondering about truth, and hypocrisy, and violence, and the cruel selfish pettiness of humans. I'm all for pondering that kind of stuff, and I admire his sternness with regard to human frailty, but it was a shame that in his morality stories he often suppressed his humor and style in favor of a prosy, even grossly sentimental mode. He could not always work up to his own standards, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" notwithstanding. And sometimes he failed even his own moral imperatives: sometimes he didn't think as hard as a writer as uncompromising, intelligent, and scrupulous as he was should have done. "The United States of Lyncherdom," his anti-lynching polemic, is almost unbearably flawed. Reason #1 why lynching is wrong? The notoriety attached to lynchings will encourage addled, attention-starved black men to go around raping and murdering more white women. Cringe cringe cringe, even while Twain goes on to uphold the rule of law, mourn for the families of lynched men, and decry the cowardice, ignorance, and urges toward conformity that turn white men into lynch mobs. And cringe cringe cringe all through his anti-war, anti-imperialist, and anti-missionary polemics--all, ultimately, leaning more toward the side of the angels, but, my God, if they don't all show their own traces of corn-pone opining! I suppose, though, that these contradictions in his writing and thought, the same kind as those that appear in Huck Finn, not only are inextricably tied up with, but also underscore the importance of what Twain achieved at his very best.
August 19, 2015
It takes a special kind of narrator to make an audiobook by Mark Twain almost boring, but Robin Field nearly manages it. To be fair, some of his voice characterizations when doing dialogue are quite good, but his straight narration is pretty dull. Still, Twain's writing is generally good enough that once you get accommodated to the lackluster reading after a couple of stories or so, you're able to just enjoy it on the strength of its own merits.[return][return]Included here are some of the standard stories that are in practically every Twain collection, like "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" and "Extracts from Adam's Diary" and "Eve's Diary", and some moderately well-known gems like "Punch, Brothers, Punch!" and "The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn't Come to Grief"---but also a few that I had never encountered before, including the excellent "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", a longer work that takes on some pretty serious themes, among others that untried virtue is not real virtue and ill-gotten gains are not gains at all.[return][return]So I give the collection of stories four and a half stars, but the narration only two and a half, for three and a half overall. I recommend either not getting the audio edition, or looking for another collection with a different reader.
April 30, 2018
some as charming as you might imagine, others disappointing enough to remind us that twain was, like every author, a human as fallible as any other.
Read
June 15, 2024“The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain,” as chosen and annotated by Lawrence I. Berkove for the Modern Library, gives proper attention to Twain’s healthy skepticism of, and outright disdain for, religious pieties and faith-based platitudes, and it’s fun to read parables like “The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn’t Come to Grief” and “The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper,” which turn simplistic moralities on their heads. More substantial items like the so-called extracts from the diaries of Adam and Eve also have their merits. But the collection makes inflated claims for the hilarity of Twain’s comic writing, and I can’t say I’m captivated by famous items like “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” and the supposedly uproarious Jumping Frog tale. There’s more to appreciate in fables like “Letter from the Recording Angel” and “The Second Advent,” but these too are uneven. Twain is more impressive as a longform writer. In these stories his ideas tend to be more interesting than his prose.
November 23, 2023
For me what sets humans apart from all other animals and what fuels the human evolution and the forward advancement of human civilization is our extraordinary ability to communicate. Of that what is most importantly is our capability to communicate with our future selves through the written word.
Professional writers are indeed a special lot of God's creation. Among those, those that can bring forth a complete narrative within the confined space of a short story or a magazine article are remarkably talented.
Mark Twain who was in way fortunate enough to salvage himself from the traditional educational avenues ultimately became one of the most prolific writers ever to walk on earth.
This collection of Mark Twain's short stories is unique. Although over a century old the stories are still applicable today. The skill and elegance of his mastery of the English language as well as the far-reaching imagination of his work is mesmerizing.
I picked this book as a result of a random accident and I for once am more than happy of the chance encounter. Anybody in love with literature and food prose simply must read this book.
Professional writers are indeed a special lot of God's creation. Among those, those that can bring forth a complete narrative within the confined space of a short story or a magazine article are remarkably talented.
Mark Twain who was in way fortunate enough to salvage himself from the traditional educational avenues ultimately became one of the most prolific writers ever to walk on earth.
This collection of Mark Twain's short stories is unique. Although over a century old the stories are still applicable today. The skill and elegance of his mastery of the English language as well as the far-reaching imagination of his work is mesmerizing.
I picked this book as a result of a random accident and I for once am more than happy of the chance encounter. Anybody in love with literature and food prose simply must read this book.
March 10, 2012
As a native Missourian, I've been raised to consider just about anything Mark Twain has ever written as good-as-gold. Though I tried to limit my Show-Me State bias, I have to admit that I genuinely loved the diaries of Adam and Eve; they are unique, charming, and really just beautiful stories. Also, "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once","The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm", and "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" made me laugh out loud more than a few times (which was maybe a little awkward since I was listening to the audiobook version of the stories on the crowded public bus. Ah, well). His writing style and delightful sense of humor make it easy to forget that these words are coming from the 19th century. Some of the stories did drag on a bit, though admittedly this could be a complaint unique to the audiobook version. All in all, definitely worth taking a peek.
February 22, 2015
3.5
Short stories from the late 1800's--not my usual fare. I just wanted to listen to the Adam and Eve parts really, and those were definitely my fav; but I ended up sitting through them all. Many stories on mankind being human, and the frustrations of everyday life. I got his points early on in the stories, but some went on long after, really driving it home and then some. Anyway, most of the stories made me smile and I enjoyed hearing the different uses of words, a bit more formal language then, and also how his commentaries still ring true today.
Short stories from the late 1800's--not my usual fare. I just wanted to listen to the Adam and Eve parts really, and those were definitely my fav; but I ended up sitting through them all. Many stories on mankind being human, and the frustrations of everyday life. I got his points early on in the stories, but some went on long after, really driving it home and then some. Anyway, most of the stories made me smile and I enjoyed hearing the different uses of words, a bit more formal language then, and also how his commentaries still ring true today.
April 11, 2013
His nonfiction may drag a little, but his wit and humor is unmatched. He has philosophies that are still very relevant today, and in this edition there is the best story about Satan I have ever read. If this rating was just on that story, it would be 6 stars out of five, as it is the best novella I have ever read. Highly recommended.
November 12, 2007
Pudd'n Head Wilson- MY FAVOURITE SHORT STORY next to Vonneguts' sci-fi short story about the woman with a gorgeous body and fountain youth yet all of her organs rested in the basement. I can't remember the title, but this I carried around with me all of 1999.
December 26, 2009
Read for "Satire: Johnathan Swift to Jon Stewart," FA09, John Sitter.
Read: "The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg," "The United States of Lyncherdom," "To The Person Sitting in Darkness," and several other pieces.
Read: "The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg," "The United States of Lyncherdom," "To The Person Sitting in Darkness," and several other pieces.
January 12, 2011
Excellent! I love Mark Twain! Not every story will be forever remembered, but even the shorts I was less fond of where so well written I enjoyed the word play. I often love the language use in stories more than the plot. And of course Twain has a great sense of humor.
August 8, 2012
I had never read Mark Twain until I finally pulled this old yard sale paperback down from my bookshelves. What a discovery! Many stories, some of them true, most of them fabricated, but all infused with humor. I loved reading “The Mysterious Stranger,” a dark tale of mankind’s foibles.
May 25, 2008
Thoughts on all kinds of things by Twain, who is like nobody else. Great if you need a laugh.
Read
January 5, 2011Overall, I liked it. Some stories more that others. Mark Twain's critique of Cooper always amuses me!
May 4, 2025
This book felt like sitting down with a really sharp, slightly mischievous friend who never runs out of stories. Twain has this way of pulling you into a moment—whether it’s something outrageous, funny, or quietly thoughtful—and making it feel like it matters, even if the actual plot seems a little ridiculous on the surface.
What stood out to me right away was the voice. Twain’s writing is so conversational, so rooted in how people actually talk (or at least, how they used to), that you can hear it as much as you read it. It’s not polished in the way a modern short story collection might be, but that’s part of the charm. There’s a looseness to it, like the story’s being told out loud, maybe with a cigar in hand and a crowd half-listening, half-laughing along.
The humor is definitely one of the strongest parts of the book. It’s not always laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s clever. Twain had a gift for poking fun at people without ever quite making them the villain. He sees the silliness in human behavior—the ego, the lies we tell ourselves, the weird social rituals—and then finds a way to make you laugh at them while also recognizing them in yourself. There’s something kind of timeless in that.
But it’s not all humor. What surprised me was the emotional range. Some of the stories catch you off guard with how reflective or even sad they are. Twain knew how to land a gut punch when he wanted to. He wasn’t afraid to get a little dark or critical of society, even when he was wearing his humorist hat. That mix of tones is one of the things that makes this collection feel alive—you’re not just being entertained, you’re being nudged into thinking a little more deeply about the world.
That said, not everything in this collection aged well. A few of the stories rely on cultural references or language that don’t quite land the same way today. There are moments where the pacing drags, or where the joke feels like it’s been stretched a little too far. And there are definitely places where Twain’s style, especially his use of dialect, might be a barrier for some readers. You can tell these were written in another time—not just because of the settings or themes, but because of how much patience they sometimes require.
Still, even when the stories didn’t completely work for me, there was always something interesting in them. A turn of phrase, a strange little detail, or just the feeling that Twain was experimenting with how far he could push a story or an idea. He didn’t always go for clean structure or neat endings. Sometimes he just followed a voice or a situation as far as it would go, and then wrapped it up in a way that felt oddly satisfying.
The collection as a whole is uneven—but I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s more like flipping through a photo album. Some of the pictures are funny, some are kind of sad, and some you don’t totally understand without a little context. But taken together, they give you a fuller picture of the writer himself: curious, playful, a little bitter at times, but always engaged with the world around him.
One thing I really appreciated was how readable everything was. Even though the stories are over a hundred years old, they don’t feel overly formal or academic. Twain wasn’t trying to impress anyone with his vocabulary. He was just trying to tell a good story, and he usually succeeds. If you’re new to his work, this collection gives you a solid sense of what he’s about without committing to one long novel.
So, would I recommend it? Yeah, especially if you enjoy stories with personality and a little bite. You’ll run into some slow patches and the occasional outdated bit, but you’ll also find plenty of moments that still feel sharp, funny, and surprisingly relevant. It’s not a perfect collection, but it doesn’t have to be. Twain wasn’t perfect either—he was just observant, honest, and unafraid to say what he really thought, even if it stung a little. That, more than anything, is what makes this worth reading.
What stood out to me right away was the voice. Twain’s writing is so conversational, so rooted in how people actually talk (or at least, how they used to), that you can hear it as much as you read it. It’s not polished in the way a modern short story collection might be, but that’s part of the charm. There’s a looseness to it, like the story’s being told out loud, maybe with a cigar in hand and a crowd half-listening, half-laughing along.
The humor is definitely one of the strongest parts of the book. It’s not always laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s clever. Twain had a gift for poking fun at people without ever quite making them the villain. He sees the silliness in human behavior—the ego, the lies we tell ourselves, the weird social rituals—and then finds a way to make you laugh at them while also recognizing them in yourself. There’s something kind of timeless in that.
But it’s not all humor. What surprised me was the emotional range. Some of the stories catch you off guard with how reflective or even sad they are. Twain knew how to land a gut punch when he wanted to. He wasn’t afraid to get a little dark or critical of society, even when he was wearing his humorist hat. That mix of tones is one of the things that makes this collection feel alive—you’re not just being entertained, you’re being nudged into thinking a little more deeply about the world.
That said, not everything in this collection aged well. A few of the stories rely on cultural references or language that don’t quite land the same way today. There are moments where the pacing drags, or where the joke feels like it’s been stretched a little too far. And there are definitely places where Twain’s style, especially his use of dialect, might be a barrier for some readers. You can tell these were written in another time—not just because of the settings or themes, but because of how much patience they sometimes require.
Still, even when the stories didn’t completely work for me, there was always something interesting in them. A turn of phrase, a strange little detail, or just the feeling that Twain was experimenting with how far he could push a story or an idea. He didn’t always go for clean structure or neat endings. Sometimes he just followed a voice or a situation as far as it would go, and then wrapped it up in a way that felt oddly satisfying.
The collection as a whole is uneven—but I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s more like flipping through a photo album. Some of the pictures are funny, some are kind of sad, and some you don’t totally understand without a little context. But taken together, they give you a fuller picture of the writer himself: curious, playful, a little bitter at times, but always engaged with the world around him.
One thing I really appreciated was how readable everything was. Even though the stories are over a hundred years old, they don’t feel overly formal or academic. Twain wasn’t trying to impress anyone with his vocabulary. He was just trying to tell a good story, and he usually succeeds. If you’re new to his work, this collection gives you a solid sense of what he’s about without committing to one long novel.
So, would I recommend it? Yeah, especially if you enjoy stories with personality and a little bite. You’ll run into some slow patches and the occasional outdated bit, but you’ll also find plenty of moments that still feel sharp, funny, and surprisingly relevant. It’s not a perfect collection, but it doesn’t have to be. Twain wasn’t perfect either—he was just observant, honest, and unafraid to say what he really thought, even if it stung a little. That, more than anything, is what makes this worth reading.
July 16, 2021
Mark Twain was on the lecture circuit for over three decades. He would take the stage feigning bemusement at discovering his audience and stand silently smoking one of the 30 cigars he would enjoy that day. He was a solitary performer working in dusty, drafty, dimly lit halls, sans audio equipment, Twain knew every trick to keep his audiences engaged. His delivery, emotion, intelligence and humor would bring crowds to their feet. The power was in his voice and that doesn’t imply high volume, but his expressed genius.
“The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain” published in a new edition, is reminiscent of Twain in performance. He is talking directly to you and determined to keep you entertained.
Twain was a master at the short story. With his carefully developed plots, delightful, unexpected conclusions and his distinctive voice bell-like in its clarity, his shorter works were more tightly crafted than his novels.
In his longer works he was prone at times to either questionable elaborations, the ending of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” which scholars are still arguing about comes to mind, or he simply ran out of energy and left incomplete manuscripts — “Pudd’nhead Wilson” and “Those Extraordinary Twins” are two examples. This collection offers the interested reader insight into Twain’s growth not just in terms of his craft but his sophistication as a satirist as well.
Certainly at this juncture in America’s literary journey there is no need to expound upon why Twain is one of America's greatest writers. We should simply recall Hemingway’s pronouncement regarding Missouri’s favourite son: “The good writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain. That’s not the order they’re good in.”
Ever the control freak, Twain thoughtfully provided instructions for interacting with his prose: “It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one’s self anyhow — for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.” Thus, let the experiment begin.
“Cannibalism in the Cars” (1868) is hysterically funny, this trenchant commentary about the culture of “Congressional affairs” features a delicious riposte of parliamentary procedure. The conclusion arrives with Twain’s trademark snapper where the reader is left with a conundrum of deciding whether the former Congressman is a babbling lunatic or a bloodthirsty cannibal. Either possibility comes replete with its own rich satiric implications. Read aloud, Twain best holds the 16-year-old’s attention when the bodies start disappearing and the possible implications are realised.
Finally, the publication of this new edition prompts the obvious question: “Do we really need another edition of previously published short stories by Mark Twain?” Certainly there is no danger of running out of the plethora of collections already in print and with the nagging helpfulness of cyberspace, such sites as mtwain.com provide links to his short stories and novels 24/7.
For those who love the heft and feel of books, the choice of a physical specimen is a conscious salute to tactile pleasures. And as Twain noted, books can serve purposes for which they may not have been necessarily designed: “A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.”
“The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain” makes a perfect literary companion under all conditions. And there is the value added bonus of which the author would approve, the book can also be used as a handy doorstop or charcuterie platter. So bon appétit!
“The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain” published in a new edition, is reminiscent of Twain in performance. He is talking directly to you and determined to keep you entertained.
Twain was a master at the short story. With his carefully developed plots, delightful, unexpected conclusions and his distinctive voice bell-like in its clarity, his shorter works were more tightly crafted than his novels.
In his longer works he was prone at times to either questionable elaborations, the ending of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” which scholars are still arguing about comes to mind, or he simply ran out of energy and left incomplete manuscripts — “Pudd’nhead Wilson” and “Those Extraordinary Twins” are two examples. This collection offers the interested reader insight into Twain’s growth not just in terms of his craft but his sophistication as a satirist as well.
Certainly at this juncture in America’s literary journey there is no need to expound upon why Twain is one of America's greatest writers. We should simply recall Hemingway’s pronouncement regarding Missouri’s favourite son: “The good writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain. That’s not the order they’re good in.”
Ever the control freak, Twain thoughtfully provided instructions for interacting with his prose: “It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one’s self anyhow — for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.” Thus, let the experiment begin.
“Cannibalism in the Cars” (1868) is hysterically funny, this trenchant commentary about the culture of “Congressional affairs” features a delicious riposte of parliamentary procedure. The conclusion arrives with Twain’s trademark snapper where the reader is left with a conundrum of deciding whether the former Congressman is a babbling lunatic or a bloodthirsty cannibal. Either possibility comes replete with its own rich satiric implications. Read aloud, Twain best holds the 16-year-old’s attention when the bodies start disappearing and the possible implications are realised.
Finally, the publication of this new edition prompts the obvious question: “Do we really need another edition of previously published short stories by Mark Twain?” Certainly there is no danger of running out of the plethora of collections already in print and with the nagging helpfulness of cyberspace, such sites as mtwain.com provide links to his short stories and novels 24/7.
For those who love the heft and feel of books, the choice of a physical specimen is a conscious salute to tactile pleasures. And as Twain noted, books can serve purposes for which they may not have been necessarily designed: “A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.”
“The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain” makes a perfect literary companion under all conditions. And there is the value added bonus of which the author would approve, the book can also be used as a handy doorstop or charcuterie platter. So bon appétit!
May 14, 2024
This book is a collection of stories and articles written by Twain, and I think it manages to showcase both his strengths and some weaknesses. The man's strength is obviously his humor, and sheer skill with the language. The former he waves throughout, even in things you would think serious, and manages to make it work. Rarely does it seem out of place. The later is evident in the fact that some of these selections have fairly little plot, or even purpose, but the man's writing ability makes them enthralling none-the-less. The guy could've made the phonebook enthralling. (Do kids still know what those are?).
There are, however, some weaknesses, usually to do with his humor. Twain was no stranger to satire, and uses it throughout. While it often does bring laughs, there are times it gets to the point that you wonder if the men even said anything sincere. Always a fine line, knowing how much is too much. There's also a great deal of difference in quality from story to story. For example, Old Times On The Mississippi and The Private History of a Campaign That Failed, both based on his own life, are excellent pieces of work. The story ending in, The Mysterious Stranger, featuring a nephew of Satan as a man character, seems plotless and downright misanthropic, being little more than excuses for Twain to hate of humanity as a whole. And there's a number of pieces that, while not particularly bad, don't really stand out as great either. Through perhaps that's more the editors fault in choosing what works to include. All together, it remains a decent sampling of Twain's shorter works and writing style.
There are, however, some weaknesses, usually to do with his humor. Twain was no stranger to satire, and uses it throughout. While it often does bring laughs, there are times it gets to the point that you wonder if the men even said anything sincere. Always a fine line, knowing how much is too much. There's also a great deal of difference in quality from story to story. For example, Old Times On The Mississippi and The Private History of a Campaign That Failed, both based on his own life, are excellent pieces of work. The story ending in, The Mysterious Stranger, featuring a nephew of Satan as a man character, seems plotless and downright misanthropic, being little more than excuses for Twain to hate of humanity as a whole. And there's a number of pieces that, while not particularly bad, don't really stand out as great either. Through perhaps that's more the editors fault in choosing what works to include. All together, it remains a decent sampling of Twain's shorter works and writing style.
November 12, 2018
Inhalt
Mark Twain nimmt in einer Geschichte die Sicht des Teufels ein und erzählt aus dessen Leben und dessen Empfindungen. Mal lässt er Tom Sawyer Detektiv sein und verzwickte Fälle lösen. Oder er erzählt aus dem Leben von Adam und Eva. Es geht um die Welt und in die tiefen Abgründe der menschlichen Seele.
Mein Eindruck
Ich fand die unterschiedlichen Geschichten amüsant und manchmal sogar sehr einfühlsam. Besonders die Erzählungen aus der Sicht des Teufels und des Paares Adam und Eva hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Es war komisch zu lesen, wie der Teufel versucht, seine Handlungen zu erklären und wem er die Schuld für diese gab. Oder wie es um die Beziehung des ersten Menschenpaares wirklich bestellt gewesen ist.
Fazit
Mark Twain ist ein Humorist erster Güte. Er schafft es, dem Leser die Banalität der beschränkten Vorstellungskraft eines Menschen auf komische und ironische Weise vor Augen zu führen. Dabei hat er nie im Sinn, die Menschen vor den Kopf zu stoßen und sie der Lächerlichkeit preiszugeben; er versucht nur ihnen eine andere Denkweise mit auf den Weg zu geben.
Mit seinen Geschichten trifft er nicht nur den Zeitgeist seiner Epoche, sondern auch den der heutigen Zeit. Für mich zählt Twain zu den erfolgreichsten Schriftstellern seiner Zeit. Seine Werke regen heute noch zum Denken an und Kinder können sich dem Charme seiner Geschichten rund um die Lausbuben "Tom Sawyer" und Huckleberry Finn" kaum entziehen. Ich kann mit Recht behaupten, dass diese Geschichten wahre Herzstücke sind, und man muss sie einfach immer wieder in die Hand nehmen und von Neuem lesen.
Mark Twain nimmt in einer Geschichte die Sicht des Teufels ein und erzählt aus dessen Leben und dessen Empfindungen. Mal lässt er Tom Sawyer Detektiv sein und verzwickte Fälle lösen. Oder er erzählt aus dem Leben von Adam und Eva. Es geht um die Welt und in die tiefen Abgründe der menschlichen Seele.
Mein Eindruck
Ich fand die unterschiedlichen Geschichten amüsant und manchmal sogar sehr einfühlsam. Besonders die Erzählungen aus der Sicht des Teufels und des Paares Adam und Eva hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Es war komisch zu lesen, wie der Teufel versucht, seine Handlungen zu erklären und wem er die Schuld für diese gab. Oder wie es um die Beziehung des ersten Menschenpaares wirklich bestellt gewesen ist.
Fazit
Mark Twain ist ein Humorist erster Güte. Er schafft es, dem Leser die Banalität der beschränkten Vorstellungskraft eines Menschen auf komische und ironische Weise vor Augen zu führen. Dabei hat er nie im Sinn, die Menschen vor den Kopf zu stoßen und sie der Lächerlichkeit preiszugeben; er versucht nur ihnen eine andere Denkweise mit auf den Weg zu geben.
Mit seinen Geschichten trifft er nicht nur den Zeitgeist seiner Epoche, sondern auch den der heutigen Zeit. Für mich zählt Twain zu den erfolgreichsten Schriftstellern seiner Zeit. Seine Werke regen heute noch zum Denken an und Kinder können sich dem Charme seiner Geschichten rund um die Lausbuben "Tom Sawyer" und Huckleberry Finn" kaum entziehen. Ich kann mit Recht behaupten, dass diese Geschichten wahre Herzstücke sind, und man muss sie einfach immer wieder in die Hand nehmen und von Neuem lesen.
March 26, 2019
Mark Twain's short stories are all pretty sarcastic depictions of life as he saw it. Very few members of society or aspects of day to day living escape his scalding humor. From journalists and politicians to mechanization, religion and social classes -- everything is pretty much held up for ridicule. These stories are humorous but also offer an amazing overview of life at the time of Samuel Clemons. I shouldn't have been surprised, but, was chagrined none the less by the rampant misogyny as well as the racist overtones. Aside from the offensive use of the n word, I was most struck and truly affected by a brief mention in one of his stories of a woman who had "a teaspoon" of black blood -- according to the speaker, which made her more than unsuitable for marriage to a white man. He said that it was lucky she died and that he had discouraged the union or it would have been ruinous and a fate worse than death for the potential husband. To fully realize the extent of racism at the time was something I knew intellectually, but just this brief, almost side note in a tale, just left me stunned and disgusted. I really like the narrator of the book. He read the stories as they would have been told over a campfire or to a fellow passenger on a train. His rendition really brought the tales to life (even though there were times when I wished they weren't.)
October 15, 2023
Twain was definitely ahead of time. That cliché probably gets thrown around too much, as if everyone is just supposed to magically understand what it means. Here are direct examples: In "The Mysterious Stranger" Twain writes a 50 page story about how Satan routinely interferes in daily life, often for Chaotic reasons, and yet humans are aware and often welcoming of that. Except that, at the end, Satan gives a speech which leaves us fairly certain that Twain was, at most agnostic, and probably an atheist.
In the United States of Lyncherdom, Twain takes a clear stance against lynching and calls out the white cowards who refuse to stand up for human decency. This is a prelude to Martin Luther King Jr's, Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Both admit there is little that can be done about the people who are racist and committed to it. But the people who tolerate it and go along with the crowd are the problem. His condemnation of lynching as a national problem is clear and unequivocal.
In The Great Landslide Case, Twain critiques poorly written laws and their support for the wealthy. He tends to take the side of the working class man, or at least the man who is upfront about what he wants and why he wants it, rather than hiding behind laws and obfuscation.
I honestly feel like I understand Twain better as a writer and philosopher having read these stories.
In the United States of Lyncherdom, Twain takes a clear stance against lynching and calls out the white cowards who refuse to stand up for human decency. This is a prelude to Martin Luther King Jr's, Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Both admit there is little that can be done about the people who are racist and committed to it. But the people who tolerate it and go along with the crowd are the problem. His condemnation of lynching as a national problem is clear and unequivocal.
In The Great Landslide Case, Twain critiques poorly written laws and their support for the wealthy. He tends to take the side of the working class man, or at least the man who is upfront about what he wants and why he wants it, rather than hiding behind laws and obfuscation.
I honestly feel like I understand Twain better as a writer and philosopher having read these stories.
November 9, 2020
I thought some Mark Twain would be just the thing to help get me through the recent American elections, and I was right. My favorite of this collections was the satirical JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE. In this one Twain puts himself as a casual worker in the middle of a small town newspaper office with an mad editor whose libelous prose leads to an explosion of revenge-mayhem straight out of a Quinten Tarentino movie. THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT is another gem, a parody of detective stories that could play well with those of us who have seen one too many episodes of network police procedurals.
You can't really go wrong with Twain if you are in the right mood for his Swiftian skewering of humanity's foibles. He has a gentler side, too, as his two stories featuring the Diaries of Adam and Eve prove. His imagination runs wild in THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME IN CONNECTICUT where the author comes face to face with a sadistic midget version of his own conscience. If you enjoy any of Twain's novels or travel books, this collection will bring both humor and recognition of our flawed humanity in equal measures.
You can't really go wrong with Twain if you are in the right mood for his Swiftian skewering of humanity's foibles. He has a gentler side, too, as his two stories featuring the Diaries of Adam and Eve prove. His imagination runs wild in THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME IN CONNECTICUT where the author comes face to face with a sadistic midget version of his own conscience. If you enjoy any of Twain's novels or travel books, this collection will bring both humor and recognition of our flawed humanity in equal measures.
Read
April 26, 2025As with any short story collection, some stories are better than others. But overall, this book has more hits than clunkers, and gives a broad sense of Twain as writer, including stories from throughout his career. My favorites are the Adam and Eve diaries, “Journalism in Tennessee,” “A True Story,” and “The Private History of the Campaign that Failed.” The longer stories tend to run out of steam for me, and some of them reflect Twain’s increasing dark view of human nature and religion that stand in contrast to his more lighthearted and humanistic tales. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood for those darker stories, but they didn’t impact me as much. I was surprised that a few of the stories here have an almost science fiction or supernatural flavor; like many, I’ve always associated Twain with homespun Americana, certainly not sci-fi.
The accompanying material - three amusing essays by Twain on writing, story notes, and informative introductions by Twain scholars - is welcome. The only Twain I’ve read before this is Huckleberry Finn, and this book broadened my understanding of him as a writer, while also being an entertaining read. I’m eager to read more of his stuff.
The accompanying material - three amusing essays by Twain on writing, story notes, and informative introductions by Twain scholars - is welcome. The only Twain I’ve read before this is Huckleberry Finn, and this book broadened my understanding of him as a writer, while also being an entertaining read. I’m eager to read more of his stuff.
September 11, 2023
I hate to say it, but this collection fell victim to the plight I find most short story collections fall victim to. Personally, when I read a collection of short stories I find they vary from amazing to boring or awful, which usually leads me to rank them 3 stars on average.
Twain is a master of satire and social commentary. Pretty much the majority of these stories are observations on society and human nature. Some of them, like his story on what Heaven is like and another on a man who tricks a sanctimonious town into falling into moral corruption, are brilliant looks into how people act and how our views of life are ultimately flawed. Others fell victim to the dating of time and really reflect the views of his generation and don't translate as well to the modern day reader.
At the end of the day, even though some of his stories felt a little bellicose and bloated, Mark Twain never fails to make witty observations and make you realize the absurdity of life. I am glad I took the time to read this collection, the good and the not so good.
Twain is a master of satire and social commentary. Pretty much the majority of these stories are observations on society and human nature. Some of them, like his story on what Heaven is like and another on a man who tricks a sanctimonious town into falling into moral corruption, are brilliant looks into how people act and how our views of life are ultimately flawed. Others fell victim to the dating of time and really reflect the views of his generation and don't translate as well to the modern day reader.
At the end of the day, even though some of his stories felt a little bellicose and bloated, Mark Twain never fails to make witty observations and make you realize the absurdity of life. I am glad I took the time to read this collection, the good and the not so good.
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