Books in Mark Twain series

Tom Sawyer is a respectable boy in a little Mississippi River town. Huck Finn is a freedom-loving, neglected outcast. What better playmate could Tom want? One night, innocent games of pirates and Robin Hood turn serious when the boys witness a murder in the graveyard. The murderer will kill them if they tell the truth. What should they do? The boys decide to search for the murderer’s treasure. What risks will they take? Who else will they endanger? Will they have the courage and quick thinking to escape from dark caverns, cross the mighty Mississippi, and outwit the criminals? Will they find what they are looking for? Real Reads are accessible texts designed to support the literacy development of primary and lower secondary age children while introducing them to the riches of our international literary heritage. Each book is a retelling of a work of great literature from one of the world’s greatest cultures, fitted into a 64-page book, making classic stories, dramas and histories available to intelligent young readers as a bridge to the full texts, to language students wanting access to other cultures, and to adult readers who are unlikely ever to read the original versions.

Huckleberry Finn would rather be free than ‘sivilized’. Adventures with Tom Sawyer made Huck rich--but his Pap is a violent drunk and the broad Mississippi is the road to liberty. Huck’s raft can carry him and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, to safety. When they lose their way one foggy night, though, they are headed downriver into dangerous territory. How can one small boy pilot his way through a land of mortal feuds, lynch mobs and tricksters? When life and freedom are at risk, how can Huck figure out the difference between wrong and right? Real Reads are accessible texts designed to support the literacy development of primary and lower secondary age children while introducing them to the riches of our international literary heritage. Each book is a retelling of a work of great literature from one of the world’s greatest cultures, fitted into a 64-page book, making classic stories, dramas and histories available to intelligent young readers as a bridge to the full texts, to language students wanting access to other cultures, and to adult readers who are unlikely ever to read the original versions.

The story follows Captain Elias Stormfield on his decades long cosmic journey to Heaven; his accidental misplacement after racing a comet; his short-lived interest in singing and playing the harp (generated by his preconceptions of heaven); and the general obsession of souls with the celebrities of Heaven such as Adam, Moses, and Elijah, who according to Twain become as distant to most people in Heaven as living celebrities are on Earth (an early parody of celebrity culture. Twain uses this story to show his view that the common conception of Heaven is ludicrous, and points out the incongruities of such beliefs with his characteristic adroit usage of hyperbole.A Horse's Tale is a novel by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), written partially in the voice of Soldier Boy, who is Buffalo Bill's favorite horse, at a fictional frontier outpost with the U.S. 7th CavalryA Double Barrelled Detective Story - The story contains two arcs of revenges. In the primary arc, a rich young woman is abused, humiliated and abandoned by her new husband, Jacob Fuller, whom she married against the wishes of her father. The young Fuller resents her father's rejection and dismissal of him as a neer-do-well and resolves to exact his revenge by mis-treating his new bride. After his abandonment, she bears a son who she names Archy Stillman. When the child gets older, the mother discovers that he possesses an incredible ability of smell, like a bloodhound. The mother instructs her child, now sixteen, to seek out his biological father with the intent of destroying that man’s peace and reputation, and hence extracting satisfaction for her.A Dog's Tale - The book is told from the standpoint of a loyal household pet, a dog self-described by the first sentence of the story; "My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian." The story begins with a description of the dog's life as a puppy and her separation from her mother, which to her was inexplicable. Her puppy and her owner's new child were soon added to her new home. When a fire breaks out in the nursery, the dog risks her life to drag the baby to safety. In the process, her motives are misunderstood and she is cruelly beaten by the father of the family with a cane, resulting in her leg getting broken. Soon, however, the truth of the situation is discovered and she receives no end of praise. Later in the story, her puppy dies, killed by the father of the family to prove his opinion on optics to his scientist peers. Only a servant seems to realize the irony of this, exclaiming, "Poor little doggie, you saved HIS child!" In the end, the dog (who does not realize her puppy is dead until her own hour is upon her) pines inconsolable over the grave of the puppy with the clear implication that she will do so until death

Mark Twain's Speeches by Mark Twain - The English Edition - Over 100 Classic Speeches - These speeches will address themselves to the minds and hearts of those who read them, but not with the effect they had with those who heard them; Clemens himself would have said, not with half the effect. I have noted elsewhere how he always held that the actor doubled the value of the author's words; and he was a great actor as well as a great author. He was a most consummate actor, with this difference from other actors, that he was the first to know the thoughts and invent the fancies to which his voice and action gave the color of life. Representation is the art of other actors; his art was creative as well as representative; it was nothing at second hand. I never heard Clemens speak when I thought he quite failed; some burst or spurt redeemed him when he seemed flagging short of the goal, and, whoever else was in the running, he came in ahead. His near-failures were the error of a rare trust to the spontaneity in which other speakers confide, or are believed to confide, when they are on their feet. He knew that from the beginning of oratory the orator's spontaneity was for the silence and solitude of the closet where he mused his words to an imagined audience; that this was the use of orators from Demosthenes and Cicero up and down. He studied every word and syllable, and memorized them by a system of mnemonics peculiar to himself, consisting of an arbitrary arrangement of things on a table—knives, forks, salt-cellars; inkstands, pens, boxes, or whatever was at hand—which stood for points and clauses and climaxes, and were at once indelible diction and constant suggestion. He studied every tone and every gesture, and he forecast the result with the real audience from its result with that imagined audience. Therefore, it was beautiful to see him and to hear him; he rejoiced in the pleasure he gave and the blows of surprise which he dealt; and because he had his end in mind, he knew when to stop.

The Stolen White Elephant by Mark Twain - "The Stolen White Elephant" is a short story written by Mark Twain and published in 1882 by James R. Osgood. In this detective mystery, a Siamese white elephant, en route from Siam to Britain as a gift to the Queen, disappears in New Jersey. The local police department goes into high gear to solve the mystery but it all comes to a tragic end. It is just one of the stories in the first edition. The others are the same as were included in the earlier publication Punch Brothers Punch in 1878, with the omission of "Legend of Sagenfeld, In Germany", "Rogers", and "Speech on the Weather". And the addition of the titular story, "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime", "Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning", and "A Curious Experience".

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain that recounts the life of Joan of Arc. It is Twain's last completed novel, published when he was 61 years old.The novel is presented as a translation (by "Jean Francois Alden") of memoirs by Louis de Conte, a fictionalized version of Louis de Contes, Joan of Arc's page. The novel is divided into three sections according to Joan of Arc's development: a youth in Domrémy, a commander of the army of Charles VII of France, and a defendant at trial in Rouen.Originally, the novel was published as a serialization in Harper's Magazine beginning in April 1895. Twain, aware of his reputation as a comic, asked that each installment appear anonymously so that readers would treat the piece seriously. Regardless, his authorship soon became known, and the book edition published by Harper and Brothers in May 1896 credited Mark Twain.

Classic Twain humor. The stories include: THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON, ON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF LYING, ABOUT MAGNANIMOUS-INCIDENT LITERATURE, THE GRATEFUL POODLE, THE BENEVOLENT AUTHOR, THE GRATEFUL HUSBAND, PUNCH, BROTHERS, PUNCH; THE GREAT REVOLUTION IN PITCAIRN, THE CANVASSER'S TALE, AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER, PARIS NOTES, LEGEND OF SAGENFELD, IN GERMANY; SPEECH ON THE BABIES, SPEECH ON THE WEATHER, CONCERNING THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, and ROGERS

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress is a travel book by American author Mark Twain published in 1869 which humorously chronicles what Twain called his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered vessel Quaker City (formerly USS Quaker City) through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American travelers in 1867. This book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it were a record of a solemn scientific expedition, it would have about it that gravity, that profundity, and that impressive incomprehensibility which are so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attractive. Yet notwithstanding it is only a record of a pic-nic, it has a purpose, which is to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him. I make small pretense of showing anyone how he ought to look at objects of interest beyond the sea—other books do that, and therefore, even if I were competent to do it, there is no need. I offer no apologies for any departures from the usual style of travel-writing that may be charged against me—for I think I have seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, whether wisely or not. In this volume I have used portions of letters which I wrote for the Daily Alta California, of San Francisco, the proprietors of that journal having waived their rights and given me the necessary permission. I have also inserted portions of several letters written for the New York Tribune and the New York Herald.

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).