Tall Tales of Mark Twain : Arthur's Classic Novels

Tall Tales of Mark Twain

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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked Through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service -- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll --"

The Adventures of Hucklebeery Finn
YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain
a novel of further adventures of Tom Sawyer

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain.
It is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward its mouth, it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. From the junction of the Ohio to a point half way down to the sea, the width averages a mile in high water: thence to the sea the width steadily diminishes

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain.
In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him.

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain.
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.
Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.

Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain.
Strange as the incidents of this story are, they are not inventions, but facts--even to the public confession of the accused. I take them from an old-time Swedish criminal trial, change the actors, and transfer the scenes to America. I have added some details, but only a couple of them are important ones. -- M. T.

A Tramp Abroad By Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)
In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages along the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient quarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule.

What Is Man?and Other Essays of Mark Twain
There are gold men, and tin men, and copper men, and leaden mean, and steel men, and so on--and each has the limitations of his nature, his heredities, his training, and his environment.

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Vol I by Mark Twain.
When we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at the miracle of such a product from such a soil. The contrast between her and her century is the contrast between day and night. She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one;

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Vol II by Mark Twain.
It was horribly dangerous, and it could not be necessary to stay in such a place. And you led an assault again. Joan, it is tempting Providence. I want you to make me a promise. I want you to promise me that you will let others lead the assaults, if there must be assaults, and that you will take better care of yourself in those dreadful battles. Will you?

Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain.
Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls--why, I am sure I do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason; it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself.

Breaking Up General Grant by Mark Twain.
Probably the main emphasis of the Tribune's account was the "Stag" nature of the banquet. It took the reader into the dinner with a long description of "the amusing feature" of "the singular contrast" between "the stern masculinity of the line of banqueters and the almost exclusively feminine character of the groups of spectators who enclosed them on both sides" as they marched into the dining room, from which all women were excluded.

Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven by Mark Twain.
Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. Like a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them! Of course there warn't any of them going my way, as a steady thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of a lasso, whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart for the Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that was going my way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a brush together. But it was generally pretty one-sided, because I sailed by them the same as if they were standing still.

A Double-Barreled Detective Story by Mark Twain.
Jacob Fuller, the bridegroom, is twenty-six years old, is of an old but unconsidered family which had by compulsion emigrated from Sedgemoor, and for King James's purse's profit, so everybody said -- some maliciously the rest merely because they believed it. The bride is nineteen and beautiful. She is intense, high-strung, romantic, immeasurably proud of her Cavalier blood, and passionate in her love for her young husband.

Following The Equator by Mark Twain.
We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon and Columbia the forest fires were raging.

The Story of the Good Little Boy by Mark Twain.
This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they were his greatest delight. This was the whole secret of it. He believed in the good little boys they put in the Sunday-school books; he had every confidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive once; but he never did. They all died before his time, maybe.

The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain.
But at last, in the drift of time, Hadleyburg had the ill luck to offend a passing stranger--possibly without knowing it, certainly without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared not a rap for strangers or their opinions. Still, it would have been well to make an exception in this one's case, for he was a bitter man, and revengeful.

Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls by Mark Twain.
But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present one; for this one comprised among its servants the very greatest among the learned; and besides it was to go to the utterly unvisited regions believed to lie beyond the mighty forest--as we have remarked before. How the members were banqueted, and glorified, and talked about! Everywhere that one of them showed himself, straightway there was a crowd to gape and stare at him.

On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain.
No fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of our circumstances--the deduction that it is then a Virtue goes without saying. No virtue can reach its highest usefulness without careful and diligent cultivation--therefore, it goes without saying that this one ought to be taught in the public schools

The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories by Mark Twain.
Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely content. At its front flowed the tranquil river

Mark Twain, A Biography Vol I Part 1 by Albert Bigelow Paine
He returned to school, but he never learned to like it. Each morning he went with reluctance and remained with loathing--the loathing which he always had for anything resembling bondage and tyranny or even the smallest curtailment of liberty.

Mark Twain, A Biography Vol I Part 2 by Albert Bigelow Paine
Expecting to find the house empty, he found it packed from the footlights to the walls. Sidling out from the wings--wobbly-kneed and dry of tongue--he was greeted by a murmur, a roar, a very crash of applause that frightened away his remaining vestiges of courage.

My Watch, An Instructive Tale by Mark Twain.
My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable.

Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses by Mark Twain.
It seems to me that it was far from right for the Professor of English Literature in Yale, the Professor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper's literature without having read some of it. It would have been much more decorous to keep silent and let persons talk who have read Cooper.

Christian Science

1601

Mark Twain's Autobiography Vol I

Mark Twain's Autobiography Vol II

A Dog's Tale
My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself.

Roughing It
My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence.

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