Internet Resources
- Mark Twain: Library of AmericaLanding page for Mark Twain from the Library of America. Includes links to major works and lesser known titles.
- Mark Twain’s Most Famous BooksInformation on Mark Twains most famous books from the Mark Twain House and Museum.
- Works By Mark TwainMark Twain's literary works cover the writing of novels, essays, letters, speeches, plays, poems and short stories.
- Writings: Mark Twain ProjectList of digitized writings by Mark Twain.
Streaming Media
- Mark Twain's The Man That Corrupted HadleyburgHadleyburg has a reputation for unshakable honesty. The smug townspeople are proud of this virtue and keep themselves honest by simply avoiding temptation. That is until “the man that corrupted Hadleyburg” arrives in town. Robert Preston stars as the stranger who plots a revenge on the hypocritical residents by promising a fortune to the citizens who once showed him charity many years before. One by one the stranger tempts the leading citizens to scheme for the money—until Hadleyburg’s honest reputation is mud before the world. Based on one of Twain’s best-known short stories, Mark Twain’s The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg is a cynical yet humorous view of life in America’s small towns—a life that the acerbic Mr. Twain knew only too well. Also starring Fred Gwynne. As seen on PBS. (40 minutes)
- Puddin' Head WilsonAmerica’s magnificent storyteller, Mark Twain, has crafted an intriguing and classic tale of mistaken identity, deceit and murder. Here a slave woman cradle-switches her master’s son with her own light-skinned baby, however, even though raised as a white man, he never fulfills her hopes and dreams for him as he becomes an arrogant and cruel man. Acclaimed actor Ken Howard stars as the local lawyer unraveling the mystery.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtThis adaptation of Mark Twain's classic tale is the story of a modern-day Yankee named Hank Morgan who finds himself transported back to the medieval world of King Arthur. Morgan uses his wits and 19th-century know-how to find favor in Arthur's court. Starring Thomas Mitchell and Boris Karloff. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner.
Books
Prince and the Pauper
Tom Canty, the urchin, learns how luxury and power can become the death of a man, while his doppleganger roams his kingdom, learning first hand of the cruelty of the Tudor monarchy. . . . "Twain was . . . enough of a genius to build his morality into his books, with humor and wit and -- in the case of The Prince and the Pauper -- wonderful plotting." -- E.L. Doctorow
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
Nine tales showcase Twain's wit as he skewers greed and hypocrisyand makes a memorable, tormenting statement on evil.
The tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson ; and, the comedy, Those extraordinary twins
Colorful, irreverent, romantic, skeptical, a master of comic asides, a bittersweet humorist, and an unflinching critic of human pretensions, Mark Twain speaks to us across time with verve and wisdom. On the occasion of the centennial of his birth, Oxford is issuing a paperback set of ourlandmark 29 volume collection, The Oxford Mark Twain. In addition to gathering together most of the writings ever published by Twain in the U.S., each volume is introduced by one of our most eminent writers. Their essays combine critical insights and personal appreciations of Twain as a fellowwriter. An interpretive essay by a leading scholar that sets the book in its context concludes each volume. At the heart of each is a facsimile edition of Twain's original which captures its contemporary flavor. Many include original illustrations which suggest the life and times of the books in away that other editions cannot. This remarkable offering will be treasured by all lovers of literature.
Life on the Mississippi
In 1882 Mark Twain returned to the river of his childhood, determined to write the definitive travel book on the Mississippi. Life on the Mississippi is no ordinary guided tour, for every page is expressive of the structure, style and high humour that is the very essence of Twain the writer. Spiced with Twain's pungent observations and commentaries on the culture and society of the great river valley, the book is a wonderful collection of lively anecdotes, tall tales and character sketches; historical facts and information; and reminiscences of the author's boyhood and experiences as a steamboat pilot. Life on the Mississippi, in its composition and substance, is intricately related to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In his introduction, James M. Cox suggests that in writing this travelogue Twain discovered the truths that form the heart of the odyssey depicted in his masterpiece, Huckleberry Finn. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
$30,000 Bequest and Other Stories
Mark Twain was certainly America's greatest writer. His genius enabled him to make entertaining reading, even great literature, out of almost anything. Therefore all his collections of miscellaneous shorter works are treasure-troves of short stories, essays, autobiography, and journalistic sketches, ranging, as this one does, from a story told from the point of view of a dog, an article about the first typewriters, to the beginnings of Twain's late, fantastic work, Biblical or religious fantasies in which he confronts the most profound issues of existence: "A Monument to Adam," "A Human Word from Satan," "Extracts from Adam's Diary," "Eve's Diary," etc. These can be seen as preludes to his most controversial work of the period of "The Mysterious Stranger" and "Letters from the Earth."
Mark Twain: Historical Romances
In the three novels collected in this Library of America volume, Mark Twain turned his comic genius to a period that fascinated and repelled him in equal measure: medieval and Renaissance Europe. This lost world of stately pomp and unspeakable cruelty, artistic splendor and abysmal ignorance--the seeming opposite of brashly optimistic, commercial, democratic nineteenth-century America--engaged Twain's imagination, inspiring a children's classic, and astonishing fantasy of comedy and violence, and an unusual fictional biography.
Innocents Abroad
In which America's greatest writer accompanies a boatload of often ridiculous, provincial pilgrims on The Tour of Europe and the Holy Land, as pretensions are punctured, much supposedly taken for granted is viewed with a jaundiced eye, and what could be a mere travel book rises to the level of great literature: a microcosm of the entire human comedy.