The town of Hadleyburg had the reputation of being the most honest town in a wide area, indeed an incorruptible community. The elders took this reputation so to heart that they...

The Prince and the Pauper (1882) represents Mark Twains first attempt at historical fiction. The book, set in 1547, tells the story of two young boys who are identical in...

Mark Twain pulls no punches while exposing the real Percy Shelley in this scathing condemnation of Edward Dowdens Life of Shelley. Even though, as Twain writes, Shelleys life has...

Old Times on the Mississippi is a non-fiction work by Mark Twain. It was published in 1876. Originally published in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly, in 1875, this same work...

In one of his later novels, the master storyteller spins a tale of two children switched at infancy. A slave takes on the identity of master and heir while the rightful heir is...

A collection of Twain short stories including: The Loves Of Alonzo Fitz Clarence And Rosannah Ethelton On The Decay Of The Art Of Lying About Magnanimous-Incident Literature The...

This book, published in 1920, analyzes the literary progression of Samuel Clemens and his shortcomings (which are debatable). Brooks attributes Clemens increasing sense of...

What Is Man?, published by Mark Twain in 1906, is a dialogue between a young man and an older man jaded to the world. It involves ideas of destiny and free will, as well as of...

This is Mark Twains vicious and amusing review of Fenimore Coopers literary art. It is still read widely in academic circles. Twains essay, Fenimore Coopers Literary Offenses...

A river memoir documenting Twains early days as an apprentice steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. Reminiscing about his happy experiences as a...