A feisty young boy fakes his own death to escape his abusive father and heads off down the Mississippi River with his newfound friend Jim, a runaway slave.

A high-jumping frog named Daniel Webster ... A town so boastfully free of corruption that one visitor decides to test its mettle ... A man who buys a burglar alarm only to have it stolen with his other possessions. Such are the results when a traditional American genre, the tall tale, are put into the hands of a true American genius, Mark Twain. A collection of 13 stories.

It began as a dinner-party contest: when Mark Twain and his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner criticized the deplorable quality of their wives' reading material, the two writers were challenged to come up with something more intriguing. Thus, for the only time in his career, Twain collaborated on a novel with another author. The title of their rollicking 1873 tale became synonymous with the rampant post—Civil War corruption of Washington, D.C., where...

This comprehensive volume of all of Twain's shorter works is representative of his vast humor and wit. "The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain" includes the following tales: "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," "The Story of the Bad Little Boy," "Cannibalism in the Cars," "A Day at Niagara," "Legend of the Capitoline Venus," "Journalism in Tennessee," "A Curious Dream," "The Facts in the Great Beef Contract," "How I Edited an Agricultural...

The adventures of Tom Sawyer: The adventures and pranks of a mischievous boy growing up in a Mississippi River town on the early nineteenth century. The prince and the pauper: A peasant changes places with a prince and both youths learn something about the other side of life. The prince and the pauper: A peasant changes places with a prince and both youths learn something about the other side of life. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Rebellious,...

A stranger who feels mistreated by a supposedly incorruptible town concocts a vengeful scheme to test the honesty of its leading citizens.

"From Percival Everett-a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards-comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...

A nineteenth-century boy, floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave, becomes involved with a feuding family, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer's aunt, who mistakes him for Tom