Customer Reviews

Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays: 2-volume set (Library of America)

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This book is a joy to read. Though not all the short works contained within are "classics", you will find satire, history, editorials, mischief, slices-of-life, without knowing by the title of any given work what you'll really be getting in the pages that follow (all part of Twain's desire to "stir the pot" and "zing" his readers)... As you will see from this book, Twain is not just a writer of the Mississippi River, but of Washington D.C., the Western U.S., Saloons, Trains, Parades, and much more. You won't be sorry with this high quality book.

Mark Twain is well known for his Mississippi Novels and Historical Romances but it's on his Tales and Sketches where you can find the commical genious in him. It's in my opinion that it's an age span wich makes you like the most Tom Sawyer (8-12), The Prince and the Pauper (13-16) or The Diary of Adam and Eve (18-) and yet, in his complete tales you may find contents of interest for all kinds of readers. And you will never find a better edition than the one that Library of America has to offer. Hardcover, cloth wrapping and alk. paper makes the reading an extra pleasure over the one Mark Teain already gives you. Love Twain and love the edition.

Many of these stories, essay, etc., are laugh out loud funny. I particularly like the one about the Siamese twins. And who else but Mark Twain could make the deaths of children funny, in Post-Mortem Poetry? If you're looking for a complete short stories of Mark Twain you'll find this is not it. Some of them are missing.

This, the first of two of this type, shows Twain dazzling us with moods and styles, tall tales and short stories, satire, essays, speeches,fables and many other things that make this a must read for the American Literature enthusiast.