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The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain

mark twain charles neider

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The sustained popularity of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and especially The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has tended to obscure for the general reader Mark Twain's other novels, reminiscences, sketches, tales, and stories. This eclipse is not surprising, but even a cursory examination of Twain's lesser known works reveals a substantial body of literature well worthy of contemporary attention.

The tradition of Southwestern humor, which flourished in America from about 1835 to the Civil War, culminates in the writings of Mark Twain. That tradition is exemplified by many of the stories in this collection. They are representative of certain themes and techniques, such as the use of vernacular speech, the telling of tall tales, and realism, that were the hallmarks of that group of writers. However, Mark Twain leaves his own special stamp in the form of his probing, sometimes cynical, view of mankind. In these stories, it is possible to trace Twain's increasing skepticism about the validity of current social morality. It is this aspect of Twain which gives his humor a bitterness and a sting. It may perhaps be credited to Twain's piercing view that his works survive and are frequently read while other writers of that period have long since been relegated to the literary specialist.

848 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1957

This edition

Format
848 pages, Paperback
Published
March 1, 1984 by Bantam Classics
ISBN
ASIN
Language
English

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About the author

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mark twain

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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Reddfox396
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Enjoyable collection of short stories.

Editions:
1. Hardcover - International Collectors Library, 1957
2. Hardcover - Doubleday, 1957
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bee_boop
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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So, I read this big volume of Twain's short stories one at a time (except the really short ones), over the last three months. Like all collections, of course some of the stories were great and some were just ok - but overall, the collection is simply superb. A few of the tales were part of my childhood (like The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County), some I've read as an adult (like The Diary of Adam and Eve), but many of them were new to me - and had the same magic as Twain's other writings. Yes, there is some cultural anachronism (they were written in the latter part of the 19th and earliest 20th centuries), but the social and political commentary on the developing American society, as well as the tongue-in-cheek descriptions of the character (and characters) of the evolving West, are brilliant and filled with humor. A delightful read. Thanks, Mom!
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heolyeollie
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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**This is a review for the Everyman's Library hardcover edition, with an introduction by Adam Gopnik.

I don't know if it's because I'm Canadian and Mark Twain is more an American staple, but I'd never really been exposed to his work. I know of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, but by name only. So I figured reading this collection of short stories would give me a good idea of Mark Twain as a writer.

That said, the 60 stories collected are mostly of the comedy genre, some being downright irreverent. Some stories were written in late 19th century, others in early 20th century, and they seem to be collected in the order in which they were written. Most of the stories I enjoyed, though there were a few that I couldn't get into and couldn't wait to finish (just to get to the next one).

Of course some stories stood out more than others, my favourites being:

The Notorious Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County
Cannibalism In The Cars
Journalism In Tennessee
A Medieval Romance
A Trial
Experience Of The McWilliamses With The Membranous Croup
The Canvasser's Tale
Mrs. McWilliams And The Lightning
The McWilliamses And The Burglar Alarm
The Diary Of Adam And Eve
The Esquimau Maiden's Romance
The £1,000,000 Bank Note
The Death Disk
Two Little Tales
The Five Boons Of Life
A Dog's Tale
The Mysterious Stranger

Which is not to say that the rest aren't any good, far from it, but these are the ones that I enjoyed reading most (even more so the ones in bold), The Death Disk getting top honours.

It was a great pleasure for me to discover Mark Twain, as well as his very accurate insight into human nature. If you haven't read Mark Twain yet (or much, aside from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or even The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), you should give this book a look. Because its contents are so varied, you are sure to find something to your liking in this collection. I myself will be looking into Pudd'nhead Wilson, then possibly into the two classics mentioned above.
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rustyfeed
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I don’t know what I was expecting. But I was pleasantly surprised by these fun and random stories.
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TewlerHD
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I had never read the majority of these stories. I definitely preferred his earlier stories. This was a fun read that really made me appreciate Mark Twain.
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kyhism
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The sixty stories in this comprehensive volume are honest-to-goodness cigar-chompin’ charmers, whether Twain’s in the mood for a frolic, for a scathing assault on the cruddiness of the human race, for a first-person ramblin’ monologue, for an examination on the brutalising effects of the American dollar on the American character, for a full-on blunderbussing of so-called incorruptible small towns, for an hilarious pastiche of Sherlock Holmes stories, for an epistolary yarn told from the perspective of a horse, for a slapdown of the hypocrisies of religious fussbudgets, for a pastiche of Wellsian sci-fi, for a peep into the diaries of Adam and Eve, for a sneering indictment on the barbarism of southerners to their slaves, to a scathing conclusion that the kindest fate for the living to is to be dead. Twain’s elegant wit and moral indignation is in evidence in each of these brilliant, timeless tales, the first writer we can call “the conscience of America” without appearing like a cheap hack. Read this man.
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Gar_A_Bage
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Like most large collections, some spot on Mark Twain, others not so much.
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Zmey
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Ideally, 3.75 stars, in part for Twain the author and in part for the editorial collection (see bottom).

I've read about all of these before, but I have never reviewed it, and I had a hankering for a couple of his classics, above all "The Mysterious Stranger." Those familiar with it know without clicking the link that Twain never finished it himself, in part, surely because his wife would have been mortified. (He didn't publish "Captain Stormfield's Journey to Heaven" until 1909 partially for that reason.) I don't think that's the only reason he didn't publish. The link notes that he made multiple different assays, and the published version is somewhat cobbled-together. Each time I've read it, the ending sits less well with me. It's almost like Twain is being made to go po-mo, with all of life a dream including Satan the nephew. I get the idea; it's just that the details of how it's presented come off kind of flat. That said, the piece is charged with all sorts of philosophical ideas.

Captain Stormfield is, IMO, Twain's second-best, skewering "fundagelical" Christian ideas of heaven, along with their attached supercilious piety, and also showing in detail what "the last will be first" might mean.

"The Diary of Adam and Eve" is still good overall, with light-hearted skewering of gender stereotypes and other things, and a poignant conclusion.

Some other stories wear well to today. "Cannibalism in the Cars" is a good one. With updates for technology, "The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm" could be written about Brinks Home Security or somebody like that today. "The £1,000,000 Pound Bank-Note" could be adjusted for other money today.

Some, like "Journalism in Tennessee" and "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper" come off as datesd.

And, a few of the morality short stories, or the sarcastic anti-morality short stories, namely above all, "The Story of the Bad Little Boy" and "The Story of the Good Little Boy," feel ham-handed.

And, this — and in general, any volume marked "Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain," unless it specifies that it also contains his essays like "The Awful German Language," — doesn't have them.
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