Amazon.com
If you're already familiar with Finn and Sawyer, perhaps this collection of fragments, short stories, and essays--assembled posthumously some few decades ago now, but still fresh--will enhance your sense of Twain's true range. A particular favorite: his essay "The Damned Human Race," wherein he proves, rather convincingly, that an anaconda snake is a higher form of life than an English Earl.
From AudioFile
Comedy legend Carl Reiner brings these short stories and essays of Mark Twain to life with feeling and drama. Much of the material is satire, and the narrator's tongue-in-cheek performance aptly suits the intent of the author. Much of the material is humorous, and Reiner's comic ability amplifies the radical ideas of a writer well known for his predilection for levity. The concepts of God, Heaven, and the Bible seem to be the commonest victims of Twain's barbs, so only the open-minded should sample these lines, which were banned from publication by Twain's own daughter. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
Book Description
"I have told you nothing about man that is not true." You must pardon me if I repeat that remark now and then in these letters; I want you to take seriously the things I am telling you, and I feel that if I were in your place and you in mine, I should need that reminder from time to time, to keep my credulity from flagging.
In Letters from the Earth, Twain presents himself as the Father of History -- reviewing and interpreting events from the Garden of Eden through the Fall and the Flood, translating the papers of Adam and his descendants through the generations. First published fifty years after his death, this eclectic collection is vintage Twain: sharp, witty, imaginative, complex, and wildly funny.
The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Miscellany of fiction, essays, and notes by Mark Twain, published posthumously in 1962. Written over a period of 40 years, the pieces in the anthology are characterized by a sense of ironic pessimism. The title piece comprises letters written by Satan to his fellow angels about the shameless pride and foolishness of humans. "Papers of the Adam Family," a first-person family history of Adam and Eve, traces the first failed attempts at civilization. Other pieces include "A Cat-Tale," an amusing, alliterative bedtime story; "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," a critique of that author's style; and "The Damned Human Race," a collection of bitter satirical bits.
From the Publisher
"It's easy to imagine Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) and Carl Reiner as best of friends, had not the one died 10 years before the other was born. Twain would have enjoyed Reiner's work in "Your Show of Shows," "The 2000 Year Old Man," and "The Dick Van Dyke Show," just as Reiner clearly appreciates Twain's humor." Audiofile
About the Author
Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Often called America's greatest satirist, he is best known for his novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Born in 1835, Twain died in 1910.
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