The Signet Classic Book of Mark Twain's Short Stories

by Twain, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780451524409
• ISBN10: 0451524403
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1985-11-20
• Publisher: Signet Classics

Summary

Presents a collection of sixty-six of the author's short fiction, including "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calavaras County," "A Curious Dream," and "Dick Baker's Cat."

Author Biography

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, in 1835, and died at Redding, Connecticut, in 1910. Although he left school at twelve when his father died, he was eventually awarded honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Missouri, and Oxford University. His career encompassed such varied occupations as printer, Mississippi river-boat pilot, journalist, travel writer, and publisher. He made fortunes from his writing, but toward the end of his life he went bankrupt and undertook a round-the-world lecture tour in order to pay off his creditors. He lives in American letters as one of our greatest humorists and novelists, the writer whom William Dean Howells called "the Lincoln of our literature." Justin Kaplan of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the author of Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mark Twain and His World, Lincoln Steffens, and Walt Whitman: A Life. He is writing a biography of Charlie Chaplin and in 1985 was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
``The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County'' Sketches New and Old (1865)	1	(6)
``The Story of the Bad Little Boy'' Sketches New and Old (1865)	7	(3)
``Cannibalism in the Cars'' Sketches New and Old (1868)	10	(8)
``Niagara'' Sketches New and Old (1869)	18	(6)
``The Capitoline Venus'' Sketches New and Old (1869)	24	(6)
``Journalism in Tennessee'' Sketches New and Old (1869)	30	(6)
``A Curious Dream'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	36	(8)
``The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	44	(6)
``How I Edited an Agricultural Paper'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	50	(5)
``A Medieval Romance'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	55	(7)
``My Watch'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	62	(3)
``Political Economy'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	65	(6)
``Science Vs. Luck'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	71	(3)
``The Story of the Good Little Boy'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	74	(4)
``A Mysterious Visit'' Sketches New and Old (1870)	78	(5)
``The Great Landslide Case'' Roughing It (1872)	83	(5)
``Buck Fanshaw's Funeral'' Roughing It (1872)	88	(7)
``Captain Ned Blakely'' Roughing It (1872)	95	(5)
``His Grandfather's Old Ram'' Roughing It (1872)	100	(5)
``Dick Baker's Cat'' Roughing It (1872)	105	(4)
``A Letter from Horace Greeley'' Roughing It (1872)	109	(7)
``A True Story'' Sketches New and Old (1874)	116	(5)
``Experiences of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup'' Sketches New and Old (1875)	121	(7)
``Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning'' The American Claimant (1880)	128	(7)
``The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm'' The Mysterious Stranger (1882)	135	(6)
``The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut'' Tom Sawyer Abroad (1876)	141	(15)
``The Canvasser's Tale'' Tom Sawyer Abroad (1876)	156	(6)
``The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton'' Tom Sawyer Abroad (1878)	162	(18)
``Edward Mills and George Benton: A Tale'' The $30,000 Bequest (1880)	180	(6)
``Jim Baker's Blue-jay Yarn'' A Tramp Abroad (1880)	186	(2)
``The Man Who Put Up at Gadsby's'' A Tramp Abroad (1880)	188	(4)
``A Curious Experience'' The American Claimant (1881)	192	(25)
``The Invalid's Story'' In Defense of Harriet Shelley (1882)	217	(7)
``The Stolen White Elephant'' Tom Sawyer Abroad (1882)	224	(19)
``A Dying Man's Confession'' Life on the Mississippi (1883)	243	(12)
``The Professor's Yarn'' Life on the Mississippi (1883)	255	(5)
``A Burning Brand'' Life on the Mississippi (1883)	260	(9)
``The Private History of a Campaign That Failed''The American Claimant (1885)	269	(17)
``A Ghost Story'' Sketches New and Old (1888)	286	(6)
``Luck'' The American Claimant (1891)	292	(4)
``Playing Courier'' The American Claimant (1891)	296	(14)
``The California's Tale'' The $30,000 Bequest (1893)	310	(7)
``Extracts from Adam's Diary'' The $30,000 Bequest (1893)	317	(9)
``Eve's Diary'' The $30,000 Bequest (1905)	326	(14)
``The Esquimau Maiden's Romance'' The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1893)	340	(14)
``Is He Living or Is He Dead?'' The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1893)	354	(8)
``The £1,000,000 Bank-Note'' The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1893)	362	(19)
``John Brown and Mary Taylor'' Following the Equator (1897)	381	(7)
``Cecil Rhodes's Shark'' Following the Equator (1897)	388	(6)
``Why Ed Jackson Called on Commodore Vanderbilt'' Following the Equator (1897)	394	(6)
``The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg'' The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1899)	400	(43)
``The Death Disk'' The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1901)	443	(9)
``Two Little Tales'' The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1901)	452	(10)
``The Belated Russian Passport'' The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1902)	462	(16)
``A Double-Barreled Detective Story'' The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1902)	478	(46)
``The Five Boons of Life'' The $30,000 Bequest (1902)	524	(4)
``Was It Heaven? Or Hell?'' The $30,000 Bequest (1902)	528	(18)
``A Dog's Tale'' The Mysterious Stranger (1906)	546	(10)
``A Horse's Tale'' The Mysterious Stranger (1906)	556	(40)
``The $30,000 Bequest'' The $30,000 Bequest (1904)	596	(26)
``The War Prayer'' Europe and Elsewhere (1904--05)	622	(4)
``Hunting the Deceitful Turkey'' The Mysterious Stranger (1906)	626	(3)
``Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven'' The Mysterious Stranger (1907)	629	(34)
``A Fable'' The Mysterious Stranger (1909)	663	(3)
``How to Tell a Story'' The $30,000 Bequest (1894)	666