Why read The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain?

Book cover of The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain

Book description

These sixty satirical, rollicking, uproarious tales by the greatest yarn-spinner in our literary history are as fresh and vivid as ever more than a century after their author’s death.
Mark Twain’s famous novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have long been hailed as major achievements, but the father of American…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

George Frederick McKay

Author

McKay loved the humorous aspect of Twain’s short stories and started composing an operetta based on a fantastic farce from this collection.

The composer enjoyed Twain's ironic and sharp wit in exposing the foibles of people entangled in conventional wisdom concerning new inventions, police and fire departments, and get rich schemes.

From George's list on the life of a Master 20th Century Composer.

Lukas Klessig

Author

The thorns of Twain's personal life and literary career only heighten our intrigue with him.

For me, he's a tragic figure whose parade of misfortunes interrupted by periods of commercial success and critical acclaim followed by further failures result in an exceptionally bipolar history. His classic novels should persist as required reading but I find his short stories equally satisfying.

This volume is voluminous, so here are some favorites to start: "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," "Was it Heaven? Or Hell?" and "Luck."

From Lukas' list on famous (and dead) figures with bipolar disorder.