Other editions of book The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Mark Twain's story of the Jumping Frog was first published in the New York Saturday Press in November, 1865. This version is from an 1875 edition of Twain's hilarious story and icludes both the original story and one supposedly "rescued" from a translation into French. Contains the original illustrations plus contemporary wood engravings depicting mining life.

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain. It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention.[1] The story has also been published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" (its original title) and "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, about the gambler Jim Smiley. The narrator describes him: "If he even seen a straddle bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to wherever he going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road."

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain. It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention.[1] The story has also been published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" (its original title) and "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, about the gambler Jim Smiley. The narrator describes him: "If he even seen a straddle bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to wherever he going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road."

Featuring 27 sketches the author wrote while living in California and Nevada, Mark Twain's first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, was published in May 1867, and has been out of print for well over a century. As Roy Blount Jr. observes in his introduction, Jumping Frog isnot just the seed from which the Mark Twain empire sprang, it is his most devilish and quicksilver book, the one that made the fewest concessions to the book-buying market of the day--the work of a man who had profited, artistically, from the company of roughnecks. In his Afterword, Richard Buccinotes that Mark Twain rebelled against everything that was obscure in art, and everywhere sought to deepen and broaden his audience. His cause was not merely to deflate and criticize, but to create, in a new and democratic artistic language. The Jumping Frog book is only a small moment on his pathto remaking American fiction, but it is the beginning moment--reason enough to justify the book's reappearance now, after one hundred twenty five years. Grand historical significance aside, however, not a few of the sketches in this book still sparkle with their original humor and insight into thehuman condition.

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain. It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention.[1] The story has also been published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" (its original title) and "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, about the gambler Jim Smiley. The narrator describes him: "If he even seen a straddle bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to wherever he going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road."