The Mysterious Stranger - Softcover

Twain, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451509374 ISBN 13: 9780451509376

Publisher: Signet Classics, 1962

Synopsis

Mark Twain was one of the greatest American authors in history and is often regarded as "the father of American literature". Twain's writing was distinguished due to his use of colloquial speech as well as his humor. Few students can graduate high school without reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Mysterious Stranger, published posthumously in 1916, is a novel that is considered controversial due to its anti-religion rhetoric. Despite the serious topic at hand, Twain still displays his classic humor.

About this title

From the Back Cover

In his last years Mark Twain had become a respected literary figure whose opinions were widely sought by the press. He had also suffered a series of painful physical, economic, and emotional losses. The Mysterious Stranger, published posthumously in 1916 and belonging to Twain's "dark" period, belies the popular image of the affable American humorist. In this antireligious tale, Twain denies the existence of a benign Providence, a soul, an afterlife, and even reality itself. As the Stranger in the story asserts, "nothing exists; all is a dream".

About the Author

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, in 1835, and died at Redding, Connecticut in 1910. In his person and in his pursuits he was a man of extraordinary contrasts. Although he left school at twelve when his father died, he was eventually awarded honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Missouri, and Oxford University. His career encompassed such varied occupations as printer, Mississippi riverboat pilot, journalist, travel writer, and publisher. He made fortunes from his writing but toward the end of his life he had to resort to lecture tours to pay his debts. He was hot-tempered, profane, and sentimentaland also pessimistic, cynical, and tortured by self-doubt. His nostalgia helped produce some of his best books. He lives in American letters as a great artist, the writer whom William Dean Howells called the Lincoln of our literature.

Edition details

• Publisher: Signet Classics
• Publication date: 1962
• ISBN 10: 0451509374
• ISBN 13: 9780451509376
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1