Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain (Bantam Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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.”

About the Author

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835. He gained national attention as a humorist in 1865 with the publication of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," but was acknowledged as a great writer by the literary establishment with The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (1885). In 1880, Twain began promoting and financing the ill-fated Paige typesetter, an invention designed to make the printing process fully automatic. At the height of his naively optimistic involvement in the technological "wonder" that nearly drove him to bankruptcy, he published his satire, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). Plagued by personal tragedy and financial failure, Mark Twain spent the last years of his life in gloom and exasperation, writing fables about "the damned human race."

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Classics; Revised edition (March 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553211951
• ISBN-13: 978-0553211955
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #120,389 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Get another edition!, February 6, 2003

By	Greg Blonder "gblonder" (Summit, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Don't buy this book! The stories, of course, are classic Mark Twain- one of the most thoughtful, humorous, and clear thinking writers ever born. But the Bantam edition is unreadable.
To save money, the margins run from 1/4 to 1/8 an inch. Not too bad on the outside edges, but on the inside edge near the spine the words are nearly hidden by the curve of the page. Either you break the spine to read the words, or you are forced to slide your thumb along the inner edge to reveal Twain's words. Find another edition.

36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a wonderful and diverse collection, October 30, 1998

By	asphlex "asphlex" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This is an important book in American literature. This collection truly shows off the massive range that Mark Twain had. From the author of books as divergant as Huck Finn and Joan of Arc, to the humorous travel writings and all the way past the bitter, hateful scribblings of his later life.

These are some of the highlights, as I see it:

"The Story of the Bad Little Boy", an early version of Twain's comprehenisive pessism and it proves that there is really no such thing. There's optimism and there's realism. "A Day at Niagra", an obvious parody of his own early newpaper feature writing. Perhaps it was an abandoned assignment on a trip to the falls and Twain had such a bad time he wrote this vicious, sarcastic piece. There are numerous other wonderful stories along the way, hilarious, mean-spirited, touching, beautiful, gently humorous and smile factoring. After the dreadful 1890s of Twain's life (lost a wife, a daughter, a fortune and another kid got sick), sometimes a few of the stories are near-misses. Still always amusing, but something is missing. Then, at recurring times over the last decade of his life, Mark Twain got angry. He popped the blister that became "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyberg", a brutal profile of mankind's inate greed and selfishness and how there will always be someone out there to laugh and enjoy your misery. "The $30,000 Bequest" is a heart-breaking tale about delusion and wasted lives, and how even the thought of money corrupts absolutely. "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" is a mercilessly blasphemous account of Heaven being no different, really, from the earth, the same classist behavior, the same tragic dreams of a better life never to be had. It shoots a hole the size of, well, Heaven in this shaky mythology.

Finally, we visit with "The Mysterious Stranger", a categorically violent attack on the idea of God. It demystifies so many absurdities organized religion tells you to take for granted, don't be surprised if you lose your faith after reading this short novel. It is one of the ultimate masterworks of satirical tragedy ever produced by a writer and is desperately in need of some ingenious filmmaker to produce an R-rated animated movie. Hell, anyone out there who may chance across this add, I'm willing to write the screenplay or assist in production in some way. I have some experience and can do this one TOP NOTCH.

Enough advertising--all in all, a beautiful, necessary book.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 5 stars for the work and 3 stars for the edition., September 24, 2003

By	Lane Fox (Huntsville, AL United States) - See all my reviews

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 I'd give it 1 star. The content is there and is far from the exaggerated description given in other reviews. You don't have to tear the book apart to read it's contents. This is a compact edition and fitting lots of stories in only 600 pages for a very affordable price. Quantity versus quality? Ever heard quantity has a quality all it's own? It applies here. You can get all these stories for one low price. You can even toss it around and not have a guilty conscience that you are dismembering a treasure.