Ebook: The Comic Mark Twain Reader : The most humorous selections from his Stories, Sketches, Novels, Travel Books, and Speeches

For the first time, the best of the humorous pieces of the brilliant and beloved “wild humorist of the Pacific slope” are collected in one volume. Yams and tall tales, sketches and stories, lectures and speeches, and excerpts from the long works: The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Huckleberry Finn, A Tramp Abroad, and Life on the Mississippi.



From his hilarious account of enduring the Turkish Bath to his ascent of the Riffelberg in evening dress, from his observations on “so manifest a humbug as the ant” to his riotous analysis of The Awful German Language, at home or abroad, attacking presidents or pressmen, the comic Mr. Twain’s presence is much in evidence in these pages. True humorist, sardonic and pessimistic genius, “the printer’s apprentice from Hannibal... masculine, personal, sarcastic, tender, nostalgic — and very funny.”



Charles Neider, well-known novelist, critic, biographer, editor, and anthologist, is America’s foremost Mark Twain scholar. “Great humor,” he writes in the introduction, “when blended with wonderful language, wisdom and humaneness, is an irresistable and priceless treasure.” In preparing this unique and timely collection of Mark Twain’s comic writings, Mr. Neider has compiled for us precisely such a treasure.