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The Mysterious Stranger is the final novel attempted by the American author Mark Twain. It was worked on periodically from 1897 up until 1908. The body of work is a serious social commentary by Twain addressing his ideas of the Moral Sense and the "damned human race". Twain wrote multiple versions of the story, each involving the character of "Satan". With 7 full color illustrations by N. C. Wyeth.

In 1590, three boys, Theodor, Seppi, and Nikolaus, live relatively happy simple lives in a remote Austrian village called Eseldorf (German for "Assville" or "Donkeytown"). The story is narrated by Theodor, the village organist's son. Other local characters include Father Peter, his niece Marget, and the astrologer.One day, a handsome teenage boy named Satan appears in the village. He explains that he is an angel and the nephew of the fallen angel whose name he shares. Young Satan performs several magical feats. He claims to be able to foresee the future and informs the group of unfortunate events that will soon befall those they care about. The boys do not believe Satan's claims until one of his predictions comes true. Satan proceeds to describe further tragedies that will befall their friends. The boys beg Satan to intercede. Satan agrees but operates under the technical definition of mercy. For instance, instead of a lingering death due to illness, Satan simply causes one of Theodor's friends to die immediately.In the village and in other places around the world where Satan transports them magically, the boys witness religious fanaticism, witch-trials, burnings, hangings, deaths and mass-hysteria. Finally, Satan vanishes with a brief explanation: There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream – a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought – a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!".

The Mysterious Stranger is a novel attempted by the American author Mark Twain. He worked on it intermittently from 1897 through 1908. Twain wrote multiple versions of the story; each involves a supernatural character called "Satan" or "No. 44". All the versions remained unfinished (with the debatable exception of the last one, No. 44, the Mysterious Stranger).

The Mysterious Stranger is a novel attempted by the American author Mark Twain. The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories unites nine of master American humorist Mark Twain’s most accomplished works. From tall tales of con men’s tricks, such as the classic that brought him instant fame, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” to a man with no money (other than a £1,000,000 banknote that no one can cash), to an exposé of greed and hypocrisy in perhaps his greatest short story, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” Twain showcases his notorious humor—skewering policemen, clergymen, politicians, bankers, and others—and displays his changing attitude toward human nature. The finale is the novella The Mysterious Stranger, a rarity for Mark Twain in which he turns his sardonic, freewheeling wit on eternal evil in a distant time and place—and conjures a memorable, tormenting conclusion.

MARK TWAIN, pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), born in Florida, Missouri, of a Virginian family, and brought up in Hannibal, Missouri. After his father´s death in 1847, he was apprenticed to a printer, and wrote for his brother´s newspaper. Between 1857 and 1861, he was a pilot on the Mississippi. From 1862 he worked as a newspaper correspondent for various Nevada and Californian magazines. His first successful story was “Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog” (1865), published in the New York Saturday Press, which established him as a leading humorist; a reputation consolidated by “The Innocents Abroad” (1869). Twain created the myth of the Southern gentleman that did much to precipitate the Civil War.“The Mysterious Stranger” (1916), is a tale set in 16th-cent Austria, in which Satan appears as a morally indifferent visitor, to reveal the hypocrisies and stupidities of the village.

The Mysterious Stranger is a novel attempted by the American author Mark Twain. He worked on it intermittently from 1897 through 1908. Twain wrote multiple versions of the story; each involves a supernatural character called "Satan" or "No. 44". All the versions remained unfinished (with the debatable exception of the last one, No. 44, the Mysterious Stranger).

The Mysterious Stranger is a novel attempted by the American author Mark Twain. He worked on it intermittently from 1897 through 1908. Twain wrote multiple versions of the story; each involves a supernatural character called "Satan" or "No. 44". All the versions remained unfinished (with the debatable exception of the last one, No. 44, the Mysterious Stranger).