Mark Twain Audio CD Collection [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Mark Twain (Author), Ed Begley (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 27, 2001

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." -- Mark Twain

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was the first American writer to capture the unique and colorful vernacular of his country's populace. Instead of striving to perfect any particular literary form, Twain strove to precisely imprint on paper the colloquial speech, mannerisms and experiences of the American people.

Twain's books earned him an enduring reputation as a satirist and humorist, but he also wrote great short stories. These stories, with their wonderful characters and witty turns-of-phrase, have defined in Americans' minds what it means to have been at a time in our country which was at once optimistic, exploratory and recklessly exploitative.

Listeners can still benefit today from hearing Mark Twain's stories and selections from his novels as they become again what they originally were: the oral history of our uniquely American consciousness.

Includes selections from Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Roughing It, and The Autobiography of Mark Twain, and the short stories The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, The £1,000,000 Bank-Note, The Joke That Made Ed's Fortune, A Dog's Tale, A Story Without an End and many more.

Performed by Ed Begley, Sr., Walter Brennan, Brandon de Wilde, Will Geer, and David Wayne

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in the village of Florida, Missouri. He attended the ordinary western common school until he was twelve, the last of his formal schooling. In a span of fifteen years he was successively a typesetter, a steamboat pilot, a soldier for three weeks, a silver miner, a newspaper reporter, and a bohemian in San Francisco known as "Mark Twain." But in 1865, deeply in debt, he acknowledged a talent for "literature, of a low order, i.e., humorous." In the next forty years, he published more than a dozen books and hundreds of shorter works, including his masterpiece, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

From AudioFile

This rich archive of Twain stories and excerpts is drawn from Caedmon recordings made in the '50s and '60s. Five actors provide the voices of Twain. Ed Begley, Sr., and Will Geer read excerpts from Twain's LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, and Geer continues with many of the other selections from THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN in his clear, jocular tones. Walter Brennan's performance of THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY stands out--the listener can envision the country store and an old raconteur spinning tales. David Wayne is perhaps the only disappointment; his unaccented speech seems too dry and crisp. Careful remastering has cleaned up the sound and produced a program free of distracting flaws. The collection is a remarkable adjunct to the numerous Twain renditions. R.F.W. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Caedmon; Abridged edition (November 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060002719
• ISBN-13: 978-0060002718
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,914 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( T ) > Twain, Mark
  • #5 in Books > Books on CD > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories
  • #15 in Books > Books on CD > Literature & Fiction > Classics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stories from another era, September 27, 2006

By 

Big Jon (U.S. Army) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mark Twain Audio CD Collection (Audio CD)

This collection presents a few of your favorite Clemens stories, just as they must have been read aloud by generations of enthralled readers. I enjoyed it greatly and wish the rest of his works were offered in the exact same format.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some stories great, some not so well done., August 4, 2006

By 

G. Kochanski (Oxford, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mark Twain Audio CD Collection (Audio CD)

Life on the Mississippi is done wonderfully.
The Jumping Frog of Calveras County is done
with such an affected "old codger" accent that
it's not funny at all, which is almost impossible
for that story. Everything else spans the
range.

The CD is a compilation of several actors,
which doubtless explains the variability.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The audio was not a good quality, November 19, 2010

By 

F. J. Turner (TRUCKEE, CA, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark Twain Audio CD Collection (Audio CD)

I tried several different audio devices and all produced the same low quality audio -- so it must have been the CD.