Collected Stories Of Mark Twain
I’ve decided on occasion to post about a book that I’ve read or a film I’ve recently watched. I don’t plan on doing this with any regularity but who knows if the response is good maybe I’ll make it a regular thing.
Here is my first one.
Sometimes you just need to back up, take a break, and read some Mark Twain.
The image below is not the version I read. The book I read is Collected Stories of Mark Twain and I’m unable to find a copy of the cover on the internet. Not that I looked all that hard…
I decided I wanted to read some of his shorter works so I picked this up and was not disappointed. Sure we all know some of these stories like, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Who Stumped the Bluejays, but I had never read A Curious Experience or The Stolen White Elephant. Some of these stories elicit more than a chuckle and in the case of The Stolen White Elephant was quite the satire surrounding the newspapers and detectives. Some of the things Twain points out in these stories written so long ago are still applicable today.
In my mind one of the best short stories Twain wrote is The Mysterious Stranger. I read this story in college in a book of Twain's titled A Pen Warmed Up In Hell. A collection of his writings that he didn't want published until after his death. I was surprised to find it here and all these years later the story still packs a punch. Very dark and not something we associate Twain with.
Personal note: In the early 1980's I was the Sound Designer on The Adventures Of Mark Twain, a clay animated film by Will Vinton. One of the stories that was included in that film was The Mysterious Stranger and to this day when I'm doing lectures at various Colleges and Universities I have students come up to me who saw the film as kids and were so freaked out by The Mysterious Stranger sequence in the film, which was our intention. It is a disturbing story and one that I feel people should read. You can find the Mysterious Stranger sequence on YouTube.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book for the range of stories that are included.
After reading this I have put holds on both Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at the library. Mark Twain's work still blows me away in the way he sketches his characters and the times that he wrote. He is always an author worth revisiting.