For deft plotting, riotous inventiveness, unforgettable characters, and language that brilliantly captures the lively rhythms of American speech, no American writer comes close to Mark Twain. This sparkling anthology covers the entire span of Twain's inimitable yarn-spinning, from his early broad comedy to the biting satire of his later years. Every one of his sixty stories is here: ranging from the frontier humor of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," to the bitter vision of humankind in "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," to the delightful hilarity of "Is He Living or Is He Dead?" Surging with Twain's ebullient wit and penetrating insight into the follies of human nature, this volume is a vibrant summation of the career of-in the words of H. L. Mencken-"the father of our national literature."
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
None more pithy:
None have mastered the pithy wisdom of Mark Twain and it is nowhere more powerful than his short stories. From the tales of bad little boys that teach us the source of integrity, to the diaries of Adam and Eve that give us great insight in male-female relations long before the self-help flood of the late 20th century. It is not only classic Americana but classic common sense full of wit and fun. None can make us laugh at ourselves like the literary genius of Mark Twain. I can read it over and over again and... more info
Great Book, Bad Edition:
This is an exhaustive edition of Mark Twain's short stories. Enough has been written about the high quality of Twain's work, which merits five stars here. But I need to add my own experience with this edition that has been discussed in other customer reviews. I agree with another reviewer that the Bantam edition leaves a lot to be desired. My own copy had a problem with the first few dozen pages being cut wrong, so that the last line of text was cut off, not even on the page. Tiny scraps of paper, like... more info
A Story Review:
"The Story of the Bad Little Boy" is a satire on the stories we all heard in Sunday school with an interesting twist. While Twain seems to b satirizing the stories of old because his protagonist does not seem to encounter punishment for his sin, Twain still ends the story with something of a moral for us to think about. While Jim may have been able to get away with his bad behavior, he was still sinful. In other words, a person cannot base his or her behavior on the fact if he or she is punished or not. The... more info
5 stars for the work and 3 stars for the edition.:
Ok, now I don't think I need to go on about Mark Twain's genius and how it is essential reading for anyone who fancies themselves a fan of classic American literature, he's number two on my list of great American writers. His work is of the sort that will make you laugh out loud no matter how much you try to hold it in. It's easy to look crazy when reading Mark Twain in public. Now about the edition...is it bad? Well not in this reader's opinion and certainly not to the extent that like a fellow reviewer... more info
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