Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 Mark Twain, Harriet E. Smith, Benjamin Griffin, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Sharon K. Goetz, Leslie Diane Myrick"I've struck it!" Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a friend. "And I will give it away—to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography." Thus, after dozens of false starts and hundreds of pages, Twain embarked on his "Final (and Right) Plan" for telling the story of his life. His innovative notion—to "talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment"—meant that his thoughts could range freely. The strict instruction that many of these texts remain unpublished for 100 years meant that when they came out, he would be "dead, and unaware, and indifferent," and that he was therefore free to speak his "whole frank mind." The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain's death. In celebration of this important milestone and in honor of the cherished tradition of publishing Mark Twain's works, UC Press is proud to offer for the first time Mark Twain's uncensored autobiography in its entirety and exactly as he left it. This major literary event brings to readers, admirers, and scholars the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended.Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2: The Complete and Authoritative Edition Mark Twain, Robert Hirst, Benjamin Griffin, Harriet E. Smith, Victor Fischer, Michæl B. Frank, Sharon K. Goetz, Leslie Diane MyrickMark Twain’s complete, uncensored Autobiography was an instant bestseller when the first volume was published in 2010, on the centennial of the author’s death, as he requested. Published to rave reviews, the Autobiography was hailed as the capstone of Twain’s career. It captures his authentic and unsuppressed voice, speaking clearly from the grave and brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions.
The eagerly-awaited Volume 2 delves deeper into Mark Twain’s life, uncovering the many roles he played in his private and public worlds. Filled with his characteristic blend of humor and ire, the narrative ranges effortlessly across the contemporary scene. He shares his views on writing and speaking, his preoccupation with money, and his contempt for the politics and politicians of his day. Affectionate and scathing by turns, his intractable curiosity and candor are everywhere on view.
Editors: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet E. Smith
Associate Editors: Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Sharon K. Goetz and Leslie Diane MyrickCollected Nonfiction, Volume 1: Selections from the Autobiography, Letters, Essays, and Speeches (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) Mark TwainThe first of two hardcover volumes collecting the major nonfiction by the "father of American literature": more than 150 letters, essays, and speeches selected to showcase the dazzling range of his interests and passions. An Everyman's Library Original.
Whether crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans or blazing through Europe and the Americas, Twain turned his trademark wit, candor, and acerbic sarcasm on all his experiences. We can trace his personal evolution through his ambition-filled missives home to Missouri after moving out west to be a fledgling reporter, his raucous stories of navigating a steamboat down the Mississippi, his romantic-turned-elegiac sentiments for his wife, Livy, and, later in life, his darker reflections on the ills of society. Often too outrageous not to be true, Twain’s real-life adventures added to his enduring legend, while his clear-eyed view of humanity has provided an unmatched blend of entertainment and moral integrity for generations of readers.Collected Nonfiction, Volume 2: Selections from the Memoirs and Travel Writings (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) Mark TwainThe second of two hardcover volumes collecting the major nonfiction by the "father of American literature," including excerpts from The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, A Tramp Abroad, and Life on the Mississippi.
Twain’s playful exuberance and remarkable storytelling gifts are on full display as he regales readers with real-life adventures in these rollicking, shrewd, and hilarious autobiographical works. In these pages, we follow him through his stint as a fledgling reporter out west to his attempt to navigate a steamboat on the Mississippi River, and all during his experiences as an irreverent and skeptical traveler through Europe and the Holy Land. Gleefully iconoclastic, whether he is puncturing the pretensions of others or aiming his satirical barbs squarely at himself, Twain also proves to be deeply compassionate, as fierce in his condemnation of injustice as he is skillful in mining the humor in human folly. Long hailed as “the Lincoln of our literature,” Twain here demonstrates the rich and fertile a blend of contradictions he harborded as much as the dynamic nation he came to embody—and define.The Complete Short Stories Mark TwainThese sixty satirical, rollicking, uproarious tales by the greatest yarn-spinner in our literary history are as fresh and vivid as ever more than a century after their author’s death.
Mark Twain’s famous novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have long been hailed as major achievements, but the father of American literature also made his mark as a master of the humorous short story. All the tales he wrote over the course of his lengthy career are gathered here, including such immortal classics as “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," “The Diary of Adam and Eve,” and “The $30,000 Bequest.” Twain’s inimitable wit, his nimble plotting, and his unerring insight into human nature are on full display in these wonderfully entertaining stories.Joan of Arc Mark TwainVery few people know that Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) wrote a major work on Joan of Arc. Still fewer know that he considered it not only his most important but also his best work. He spent twelve years in research and many months in France doing archival work and then made several attempts until he felt he finally had the story he wanted to tell. He reached his conclusion about Joan's unique place in history only after studying in detail accounts written by both sides, the French and the English.
Because of Mark Twain's antipathy to institutional religion, one might expect an anti-Catholic bias toward Joan or at least toward the bishops and theologians who condemned her. Instead one finds a remarkably accurate biography of the life and mission of Joan of Arc told by one of this country's greatest storytellers. The very fact that Mark Twain wrote this book and wrote it the way he did is a powerful testimony to the attractive power of the Catholic Church's saints. This is a book that really will inform and inspire.The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg Mark TwainMark Twain's classic tale is a funny yet blistering indictment of political hypocrisy. A mysterious stranger is treated badly by the town of Hadleyburg-the town that proclaims itself "the most honest and upright town in the region." Through an ingenious sting operation, the stranger sets out to expose Hadleyburg's leading citizens and reveal their greedy, deceitful natures. Twain's burning wit and insight into political posturing and civic cowardice seem more pertinent than ever.Mark Twain : Historical Romances : The Prince and the Pauper / A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court / Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens, Susan K. HarrisAn anthology encompassing The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee, and Joan of Arc features Twain's imaginative studies of the Middle Ages, in a children's classic, a unique comic-violent fantasy, and a respectful fictional biography.Mark Twain : Mississippi Writings : Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson Mark TwainHere for the first time in one volume are the most famous and characteristic of Mark Twain's works. Through each of them runs the powerful and majestic Mississippi. The river represented for Twain the complex and contradictory possibilities in his own and the nation's life: the place where civilization's comforts meet the violence and promise of freedom of the frontier. It was the place, too, where Twain's youthful innocence confronted the grim reality of slavery. The nostalgic re-creation of childhood in "Tom Sawyer"—"simply a hymn put into prose form to give it a worldly air," said Twain—and the richly anecdotal memoir of his days as a riverboat pilot in "Life on the Mississippi" give way to the realism and often dark comedy of "Huckleberry Finn" and the troubled exploration of slavery in his mystery, "Pudd'nhead Wilson." Together, these four books trace the central trajectory of his life and career, and they can be read as a single masterpiece.Mark Twain : The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It (Library of America) Mark TwainBased on a series of letters Mark Twain wrote from Europe to newspapers in San Francisco and New York as a roving correspondent, The Innocents Abroad (1869) is a burlesque of the sentimental travel books popular in the mid-nineteenth century. Twain's fresh and humorous perspective on hallowed European landmarks lacked reverence for the past-the ancient statues of saints on the Cathedral of Notre Dame are "battered and broken-nosed old fellows" and tour guides "interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome cackling." Equally irreverent about American manners (including his own) as he is about European attitudes, Twain ultimately concludes that, for better or worse, "human nature is very much the same all over the world."Mark Twain: A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, Other Travels Mark TwainMark Twain: The Gilded Age and Later Novels: The Gilded Age / The American Claimant / Tom Sawyer Abroad / Tom Sawyer, Detective / No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger Mark Twain"Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand," Mark Twain once wrote. In this sixth volume in The Library of America's authoritative collection of his writings-the final volume of his fiction-America's greatest humorist emerges in a surprising range of roles: as the savvy satirist of The Gilded Age, the brilliant plotter of its inventive sequel, The American Claimant, and, in two Tom Sawyer novels, as the acknowledged master revisiting his best-loved characters. Also in this volume is the authoritative version of Twain's haunting last novel, No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger, left unpublished when he died.
The Gilded Age (1873), a collaboration with Hartford neighbor Charles Dudley Warner, sends up an age when vast fortunes piled up amid thriving corruption and a city Twain knew well, Washington, D.C., full of would-be power brokers and humbug. The novel also gives us one of Twain's most enduring characters, Colonel Sellers, who returns in The American Claimant (1892), an encore performance that moves beyond the worldly satire of its predecessor into realms of sheer inventive mayhem.
Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894) and Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896) extend the adventures of Huck and Tom. No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (1908), an astonishing psychic adventure set in the gothic gloom of a medieval Austrian village, offers a powerful and uncanny exploration of the powers of the human mind.Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (Everyman's Library) Mark Twain |
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