An imaginative and mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. After playing hooky from school on Friday and dirtying his clothes in a fight, Tom is made to whitewash the fence as punishment on Saturday. At first, Tom is disappointed by having to forfeit his day off. However, he soon cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. He trades these treasures for tickets given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses and uses the tickets to...

El forastero misterioso (The Mysterious Stranger) es la ultima novela que intento realizar el autor estadounidense Mark Twain. Trabajo en ella forma periodica de 1897 a 1908. El centro de la obra es un comentario social serio de Twain que trata de sus ideas acerca del sentido moral y la -maldita raza humana-

"El Hombre que corrompio a Hadleyburg" (1899), En este relato el autor teje una trama alrededor de la ciudad de Hadleyburg a la que en sus primeros parrafos define como: "La ciudad mas honrada y austera de toda la region." Incluso se empieza a ensenar los principios de la honradez a los ninos desde la cuna, solo pertenecer a esa ciudad era suficiente para conseguir un trabajo en cualquier otra. Por todo ello las ciudades vecinas vivian celosas. Narra la historia de una ciudad americana orgullosa de su fama de honradez, que hace todos los esfuerzos posibles por acrecentarla. El que sus...

"What Is Man?," published by Mark Twain in 1906, is a dialogue between a Young Man and an Old Man regarding the nature of man. The title refers to Psalm 8:4, which begins "what is man, that you are mindful of him...." It involves ideas of determinism and free will, as well as of psychological egoism. The Old Man asserts that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more, driven by the singular purpose to satisfy his own desires and achieve peace of mind. The Young Man objects, and asks him to go into particulars and furnish his reasons for his position. The work appears to be a...

Mark Twain was already a famous author when he undertook a journey from the United States to Europe, the Middle East, and Hawaii, and he had long-ago demonstrated his journalistic skills. When he proposed that a major newspaper underwrite the proposed journey in exchange for weekly reports of the expedition, the newspaper jumped at the offer. Later, Twain published these accounts of his travels, as the semi-autobiographical, partly fictional book, "The Innocents Abroad." His accounts of his travels are typically outlandish and hilarious, and provide a great deal of interesting and, at times,...

On a magical day in London, two boys are born into two different families, and they just happen to look exactly like one another. One boy, Tom Canty, is poor. The other boy, Prince Edward of Wales, is obviously rich. Fast forward a bit, and Tom is a young boy living in the slums of London. He has an abusive father and grandmother, a kind mother and sisters, and a pretty sad life. But he has a dream: one day, he wants to meet a real-life prince. After dreaming about living in the lap of luxury, Tom makes his way to Westminster Palace one day. When he gets a little too close to the gate, a...

"Say, Roxy, how does yo' baby come on?" This from the distant voice. "Fust-rate. How does you come on, Jasper?" This yell was from close by. "Oh, I's middlin'; hain't got noth'n' to complain of, I's gwine to come a-court'n you bimeby, Roxy." "You is, you black mud cat Yah--yah--yah I got somep'n' better to do den 'sociat'n' wid niggers as black as you is. Is ole Miss Cooper's Nancy done give you de mitten?" Roxy followed this sally with another discharge of carefree laughter. "You's jealous, Roxy, dat's what's de matter wid you, you hussy--yah--yah--yah Dat's de time I got you "

The greatest book by America's greatest author, no novel has been as acclaimed nor as vilifed as Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" Banned and panned, misunderstood by many but beloved by even more, "Huck Finn" is an immortal masterpiece, wherein Samuel Clemens ("Mark Twain") used humor to unmask the prejudices and follys of humans. In his powerful and outrageously hilarious magnum opus, Twain etched his heelmarks deep into the psyche of the nation and the world. Colorful, courageous, and at times almost rabid in its searing satire, seething irony, and ever-so-slighlty-veiled...

"Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" is an 1895 essay by Mark Twain, written as a satire and criticism of the writings of James Fenimore Cooper. Drawing on examples from The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder from Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, the essay claims Cooper is guilty of verbose writing, poor plotting, glaring inconsistencies, overused cliches, cardboard characterizations, and a host of similar "offenses.""