Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven

by Mark Twain, Frank Harrison (Narrator)

Twain's witty vision of what heaven "is really like" is told from the point of view of the recently deceased Captain Stormfield. In a folksy narration peppered with sailor's jargon, the amiable, altogether down-to-earth merchant marine describes a series of amusingly disconcerting revelations about the next world.


Sitting on a cloud strumming a harp all day turns out to be insufferably boring; being eternally youthful also has its drawbacks when the captain finds himself not mixing well with a crowd of insipid teenagers; and Native Americans so outnumber whites in the North American district of Paradise that the average white Anglo-Saxon male has trouble finding someone to talk to. In fact the outlandish dimensions and characteristics of heaven utterly explode every human conception.


This funny, satirical spoof on human pretensions about the importance of our species in the grand scheme of things was the last published work by Mark Twain. The main character and plot were inspired by the dream of an actual sea captain whom Twain had known. Published at the beginning of the 20th century, when astronomy had just begun to reveal the huge expanse of outer space and traditional religious concepts of our place in the universe had become inadequate, Twain's humorous vision of the afterlife seems to reflect the new scientific awareness of the awesome cosmos that confronts us and the feelings of insignificance that this discovery produced.

Two years after publication of this "extract," originally planned as a six-chapter book, Twain himself shipped off to follow in Captain Stormfield's wake.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Humor, Short Stories, Fantasy, Literature, Religion

153 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1909

About the author

Librarian 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.

Reviews

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was what was supposed to be a humorous tale of a hurtle through space ending up in heaven. Honestly, it felt callous and irreverent, not funny. Maybe that’s just me, but I did not think it well written or well thought out.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always imagined Mark Twain as an eccentric older gentleman, sitting in a rocking chair in Connecticut, smoking pipes, talking about steamboats, and taking weird selfies because his autobiography is full of them.

That's all true, of course, but the WTF-truth is that he was also contemplating death, the afterlife, and how it's all bullshit. And he wrote about it occasionally for forty years. And grudgingly published this EXTRACT from it as a Christmas cozy because he was broke and needed money.

Let's all say it together: WTF.

But, the results are amazing. Twain envisions a deceased steamboat Captain Stormfield riding a motorized comet to Heaven. Only he overshoots, and lands in the wrong Heaven. In Alien Heaven, humans are now the aliens, and treated as real weirdos who ask for things like halos and wings. The "aliens" (non-earthlings) don't even know where Earth is, and have to look it up in an intergalactic atlas. The LOL moment: inside the atlas, they find that Earth is labeled as "Wart."

But, eventually, Stormfield makes it to the right Heaven, with all the hosannas and choruses and Praise Jeebus stuff... and he finds it very boring. And tiring. And he has all sorts of questions for some old-people friends he makes in Heaven.

The book is a riot. Twain is always so flippant with the Holy Ghost, and it's great to see it shining through, and unexpectedly in a Science-Fiction-y sort of way. I admire his bravery, his candor, and above all, his humor.

Buy this title from Powell's Books.

[muthuvel · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I begin to see that a man’s got to be in his own Heaven to be happy.”

“Perfectly correct,” says he. “Did you imagine the same heaven would suit all sorts of men?”

I came to know about this work of Samuel Clemens (which also happened to be his last work) from Kurt Vonnegut. I remember reading Vonnegut somewhere he mentioned a tailor from Tennessee named Billings who became a superior prophet to Shakespeare and Homer in the heaven after he died of hunger. He was able to write poems that powerful but his neighbors were too dumb to realise it. He never published anything in his entire life but the innate ability of his had got the reward it deserved, at least, from the author's sanctimonious take on our tales of the heaven and related ideas. People from other worlds, the relativeness of heavenly routines and more secluded, misunderstood people like Billings are packed into this short satirical tale. I wonder if they were really people like Billings used to live here. As Vonnegut used to say, he's up in heaven now. Pity them or pity us?

[wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another from Twain. This one looks to be a fanciful tale...even the title should tell the reader that. Begins:

"Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. Like a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them! Of course there warn't any of them going my way, as a steady thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of a lasso, whereas I was pointed as a dart for the Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that was going my way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a brush together."

He gets in a race with another comet, the captain of that one, yes, captain (and crew) throwing over some...brimstone was it?....to lighten the load, pick up speed? Heh! So, he gets to the bright lights only his course had strayed a bit and so he's entering by way of another door or gate.

Started this one last night and I'm about 21% complete.

update
completed, finished, Saturday morning, 31 MAR 12, 9:39 a.m. e.s.t.

An entertaining take on heaven through Twain's eyes, short and sweet, no surprises other than one early on, one of those passing through the customs, some Star Wars-like creature...maybe it had four heads and six legs, along those lines. But then the good Captain is redirected toward the Wart's (earth is known as Wart in heaven) gate.

The story is initially told through the eyes of Captain Eli Stormfield, addressing someone by the name of Peters....and then as he is redirected toward the correct heaven, the story is told as a back-and-forth between Stormfield and an old bald-headed angel by the name of Sandy McWilliams, from somewhere in New Jersey.

Seems everyone is in attendance, Napoleon, Mahomet, Shakespeare and Sir Richard Duffer, Baronet, a nobleman from Hoboken. The greatest military genius our world (Wart) ever produced was a brick-layer from somewhere back of Boston--died during the Revolution--by the name of Absalom Jones.
Shakespeare and the rest have to walk behind a common tailor from Tennessee, by the name of Billings...

Heh! This is from Twain, so it is a hoot. Light, entertaining read. And since all are present, how'd it be possible for someone to be knocked off their feed?....unless they're of the mindset that they and their kind are to be the only ones present?

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my eye... this is one of the best books I’ve come across in a long time. What a riot it is. Simply brilliant and must’ve been pure sacrilege given the time it was published. Plus, the language, absolutely fantastic.

So this dead dude (thirty years dead mind you), got bored hopping and galavanting around the galaxy and thinks it’s time to go to heaven. But the comet he takes a ride on takes a detour and lands in a different heaven with millions of other beings from millions of other worlds where the Earth is referred to as a wart and humans are an unknown species. What a slap it must’ve been for everyone with that gullible belief of ‘we’re the only ones in this whole bloody universe and there’s only one heaven’.

However he finds the right heaven meant to be for ‘humans’ and that is the best part of the whole book. The whole lot is there, of course they all have ranks. All that ranking, hilarious and sarcastic to the core. Of course the heaven is just and gives their rightful place. Oh yes, emperors are walking behind bar keepers. What a sharp throw that is.

This this truly made my day. Sad it was the last book of Twain. A lovely little story to spend a couple of hours on. Twain truly knows how to write weird stuff in a very entertaining way. I just wish it was a bit longer.



Book 66 of 2020

[cansung · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short successful sacrilegious satire.

[James Lundy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mark Twain is a hoot. He's as funny now as he was then. Have you run out of Twain to read? Well, for some reason nobody but nobody has ever heard of or read this little jem. It is sacreligious in a most ingenious way. I would imagine even in its time it didn't get protested or burned. It's funny if you're an athiest or religious.

[Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Twain had thoughts about the incomprehensible size of the universe, about other solar systems, other forms of life, about heaven. His thoughts are funny, touching, surprising, original, and American, so to speak. I’d say it ought to be required reading. :)

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little story. Mark Twain gives his imagination a little run-out and effortlessly comes up with a much more reasonable and believable cosmology than most major religions have managed.

[Elif · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 hikayeden 3 tanesini çok beğendim özellikle kitaba ismini veren hikaye çok iyiydi. İlginç bir mizah anlayışı var yazarın.

[Alex Sarll]

The early 20th century's dawning realisation of mankind's insignificance in the great scheme of things would inspire HP Lovecraft's cosmic horror, but in Twain's hands it instead becomes a comedy of manners. So one puny Earthling reaches the afterlife only to learn that nobody considers our planet of much account, and that even within the human ghetto of Heaven the once-mighty and the white are rather less esteemed than he'd anticipated. And as for the heavenly choir, and the wings...well, strictly rookie errors. It's a curious mix of metaphysical explanations for why you're better off sticking with what you know, and reminders of how limited human perspectives can be. But for all that, and being incomplete, it's still a lot better, a lot more alive and questioning, than many great writers' final works.

[·naysayer· · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twain's state-of-the-art theological argumentation once and for all settles the grueling debate on the ultimate biological age of heaven-bound souls.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven is unfortunately only a fragment of what was meant to be a full-length novel or novella. The satire and deconstruction is amazingly ahead of its time. Heaven is often associated with the cosmos, so Twain naturally adopts a cosmic perspective of the insignificance of humanity in a galaxy teeming with intelligent life. And forget about any individual human culture. Stormfield has trouble adapting to the American section of Earth-Heaven, finding most of its inhabitants to be Native Americans, since they were here longer. Even going to the British part doesn't help much, he is told, since only the last couple centuries of English is intelligible to modern ears, and then you've got all these Anglo-Saxon barbarians and other tribal folk who predate English entirely. Muhammad, Buddha, and other non-Christian religious figures are accepted as prophets and leaders, while ordinary people denied opportunity to fill their potential are given their proper recognition in the afterlife. In a weird way, Twain is almost proto-Lovecraftian. Human ego and desires ultimately mean nothing to whatever entity controls the universe, and the result is a painful reordering of your entire reality.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

My grandmother introduced me to Twain. She didn't do it directly by shoving his books at me, but indirectly, simply by having them around her cottage in Michigan. What I started with weren't the common Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer things. They came, but only later, in high school. What she had on offer were his later, darker works.

It's been quite a while since I read Stormfield, but I still remember the satisfaction Twain's ridiculing of Christian notions of heaven and the afterlife gave me. I'd never really believed in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus or the Christian God, but I'd been hesitant to admit it publicly. The rabbit, fairy and Xmas stuff were for kids, stupid ones at that, but the God thing was something grownups sometimes talked about, something which many families went out to listen to stories about every Sunday. It, God, was different, a taboo, albeit highly suspect, topic. Twain, however, being famous, made skepticism respectable, even quite fun.

[Anthony McElroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

'You see happiness ain't a thing in itself-it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. That's all it is'

A marvelous ride through the afterlife, on Twain's comet of celestial exploration. I found this to be close to my favourite of Twain's short works and a brilliant first read if one has the inclination to turn their ear to his more miniscule works. There is a lot going on in this tale and plenty to keep to the pages turning. Beautiful!

[Winston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting little piece about a man who flies to heaven after his death and demands, as do many others, his harp and halo. Great commentary of the silliness of some of the afterlife imagery we are fed in Sunday School.

[Mick Natco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Believe it or not this and Eve's Diary are the first Mark Twain I've read. Both brilliant.
In this book, Captain Stormfield discovers the true meaning of eternal peace.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing. I prefer Twain's view of heaven to that of any organized religion now extant. Twain just makes so much more sense. His heaven sounds way more kindly, more likely and way more fun.

[Perry Whitford]

- travels to the Kingdom through space at great speeds like a fireball. Comets are like ships run on brimstone and containing millions of lost souls on the way to hell.
- meets an experienced after-lifer called Sandy who shows him the ropes
- harps and halos are soon discarded, as are wings, which Stormfield discovers are neither easy to use nor necessary to get around ("The wings are for show, not for use.")
- angels, prophets and biblical patricians are like celebrities, rarely seen but much sought after. Everyone wants to meet Adam. Heaven is a hierarchy.
- people from other worlds "there are worlds in other systems that Jupiter isn t even a mustard-seed to like the planet Goobra, for instance, which you couldn t squeeze inside the orbit of Halley s comet without straining the rivets." Their days are as long as 322 of our years. They look down on humans.
- typical Twainian windup is to have the American version of heaven mostly populated by Native Americans: "During the first three hundred years after Columbus's discovery, there wasn t ever
more than one good lecture audience of white people"

[J.D. Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" is Mark Twain's satire on the current ideas about Christian Heaven, and human hubris, and our general lack of perspective.

Shelley Fisher Fishkin's Forward explains the Oxford Mark Twain's goal to present Twain's published work as the author originally intended, defends Mark Twain as relevant and fresh (applies to Twain's original publication time, 1997 when the Oxford Edition was published, and 2022, when this review was written), and sings Twain's praises in general.

Frederick Pohl's Introduction observes personal influence from Twain and discusses "Stormfield" as sci-fi.

James A. Miller's Afterword places this particular work in context, with Twain's relationships, inspirations, the literary climate, etc.

"Stormfield" itself is short and or course, warm, funny, practical, a little critical, and large in kindness. If you want a deeper, more secularized treatment on the philosophical issues and satire on humanity's lack of perspective, I suggest Douglas Adam's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series for further reading. This is a great scholarly edition, if it's Twain and his context you're after.

[JG Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

A silly story about a sea captain who dies and goes to heaven. Stormfield meets up with a man from New Jersey named Sandy who explains how things operate in heaven. Twain’s version of heaven is a bit different than the one you may have heard about in church. He describes how age actually works in heaven, the struggle of learning to use your wings (spoiler alert: you aren’t actually supposed to use them to fly), and the rarity of seeing a prophet roaming around. This isn’t a story I would have normally give the time of day but I’m a big fan of Twain; it was an okay read.

[İlhanCa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kapağına bakınca tek hikayeden oluşuyor gibi gelebilir bu kitap. Halbuki içinde 5 hikaye barındırmaktadır. İlk hikaye kitaba ismini vermiştir. İronilerle geçen bu hikayeyi 4 kısa öykü takip etmekte. Mark Twain'in kendi hayatından izler de görülecek bu hikayeler merak uyandıran hareketli metinler içerdiğinden seri okunup bitiverecektir hemen.

[Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and largely devoid of plot, you read this to enjoy Twain's marvelous command of American vernacular. While probably shocking when published, it's rather tame by today's standards, and yet still can cause you to think.

[Yunus Emre Şahin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hayat, kötü kitap okumak için gayet kısa.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to say it, but it was kind of a waste of time. Roughing It was a lot better.

[M●13RA · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.7/10

[Matt Kelland · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's like Mark Twain's take on The Good Place. Loved it.

[LecturerRich · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange but interesting read - entertaining

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whether or not he meant this to be sacrilegious, satirical or what, there are some very profound truths in here about the littleness of man. I thoroughly enjoyed it.