If any one writer stands at the heart of American literature it is Mark Twain. With his wild head of hair, thick mustache, and brilliant white suit, he is more recognizable than any living writer, and in his time he was, as he himself put it, "the most conspicuous person on the planet." He is certainly America's most popular writer—arguably the most popular American writer the world over—and the greatest humorist we have ever known, a marvelous teller of tall tales, a genial entertainer, a consistently quotable sage. He is also one of our finest satirists, who penned withering attacks on hypocrisy and corruption (he once said he wrote with "a pen warmed up in hell") and in his most serious works, such as Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson, he cast a profound light on the darkest recesses of the nation's psyche.
The twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain is a major literary event. In addition to gathering together a superb collection of Twain's works, editor Shelley Fisher Fishkin has commissioned some of our most eminent living writers to introduce each volume with their personal insights and experiences of Twain. Readers will find, for instance, Toni Morrison reflecting on Huckleberry Finn, Kurt Vonnegut on Connecticut Yankee, Arthur Miller on Twain's Autobiography, Roy Blount Jr. on The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, E.L. Doctorow on Tom Sawyer, Willie Morris on Life on the Mississippi, Garry Wills on Christian Science, and Cynthia Ozick on The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays. Other writers include Gore Vidal, Ursula K. Le Guin, George Plimpton, Ward Just, Russell Banks, Bobbie Ann Mason, Malcolm Bradbury, Nat Hentoff, Sherley Anne Williams, Justin Kaplan, Walter Mosley, Erica Jong, Judith Martin ("Miss Manners"), David Bradley, Frederick Pohl, Mordecai Richler, Lee Smith, Anne Bernays, Charles Johnson, Fred Busch, and actor Hal Holbrook (who introduces Twain's collected speeches). And each volume includes an afterword by a noted scholar—such as Louis J. Budd, Victor A. Doyno, Leslie A. Fiedler, James A. Miller, Linda Wagner-Martin, Forrest Robinson, M. Thomas Inge, Fred Kaplan, Susan Harris, and David L. Smith—who place the work in the context of Twain's career and the literary and social climate of the time. In effect, the set gathers together an literary who's who, all of whom reflect on what Mark Twain's work means to them as writers and scholars, and what he means to our literary history and to our culture as a whole. Taken together, these introductions and afterwords provide a major reevaluation of Twain, allowing readers to see his work in fresh ways.
But of course the most important thing is the work itself. Here is the full range of Twain's remarkably prolific career, including The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Tramp Abroad, The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, The Million Pound Banknote, Following the Equator, and Extracts from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. Readers will find freewheeling parodies and burlesques, Twain's inimitable travel pieces, rich and complex portraits of childhood along the Mississippi, ghost stories and detective stories, irreverent lampoons of corrupt politicians, dark ruminations on the nature of humanity, and sharp-tongued editorials on the events of his day (such as Belgian imperialism in Africa or anti-Semitism in Vienna). Many of the works included here—such as Sketches, New and Old, A Tramp Abroad, The American Claimant, Is Shakespeare Dead? and Joan of Arc—have not been readily available for decades.
Equally important, The Oxford Mark Twain is a facsimile of the first American editions of Twain's work, and includes all the original illustrations, some of which were drawn by Twain himself, and many of which have not been seen since these editions went out of print. Moreover, in each volume containing art, Fishkin has commissioned an essay on that volume's illustrations and the artists responsible. Captivating in themselves, these illustrations add an extra dimension to the narratives that has been missing for a hundred years. Each volume also includes, as its frontispiece, a specially selected photo of Twain around the age he was when he wrote the book at hand.
The Oxford Mark Twain is an unprecedented undertaking and a cause for celebration. 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. Combining the works themselves, reflections on Twain by some of our leading writers and scholars, and the original illustrations—all at a very affordable price—this superb twenty-nine-volume set will be treasured by everyone.

The Oxford Mark Twain: 29-volume set (The Oxford Mark Twain , So29)

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches

The Man that Corrupted Hadleybury and Other Stories and Essays

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Merry Tales (1892) (The Oxford Mark Twain)

Mark Twain. Introduction: E. L. Doctorow

The Oxford Mark Twain (29 Volume Set)

The adventures of Tom Sawyer

The prince and the pauper

Life on the Mississippi

Tom Sawyer abroad

Roughing it

Mark Twain; foreword, Shelley Fisher Fishkin; introduction, George Plimpton; afterword, Henry B. Wonham

Mark Twain; foreword, Shelley Fisher Fishkin; introduction, Judith Martin; afterword, Everett Emerson

Mark Twain; foreword, Shelley Fisher Fishkin; introduction, Nat Hentoff; afterword, M. Thomas Inge

Mark Twain; Shelley Fisher Fishkin; Willie Morris; Lawrence Howe; Oxford University Press

Mark Twain; Shelley Fisher Fishkin; Forrest G. Robinson; Anne Bernays

Mark Twain; Sherley Anne Williams

Mark Twain; Edgar L. Doctorow

Mark Twain; Roy Blount

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

IRL Press at Oxford University Press

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

German Historical Institute London

New York: Oxford University Press

The Oxford Mark Twain, New York, Oxford, England, 1996

The Oxford Mark Twain, New York, New York State, 1996

The Oxford Mark Twain, Fascimile, New York, 1996

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

1st Printing, First Edition, PS, 1996

First Edition, 1997

1st Edition, 1997

March 6, 1997

Includes bibliographical references.

Facsim. of ed. published: New York : Charles L. Webster, 1894.

<p>This collection of captivating tales displays Twain's characteristic energy, imagination, and sense of fun, as well as the darkly satirical edge that marks so much of his work. His targets range from the difficulty of learning German (explored in a three-act play where two young lovers are obliged to conduct their courtship in beginning German), to the incompetence of military command (found in a sketch called "Luck" in which it is revealed that a celebrated general's most lauded battle stratagem resulted from his confusing his right hand with his left). The best-known story in this collection is "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed," one of the few pieces Twain ever wrote about his experiences in the Civil War. His friend William Dean Howells found it "immensely amusing, with such a bloody bit of heartache in it." As Anne Bernays writes in her introduction, "unmatched in the care and handling of <b>tone</b>," "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" is "a merry tale about shattered innocence and slaughter, an antiwar manifesto that is also confession, dramatic monologue...and a romp that gradually turns into atrocity even as we watch." It is a small masterpiece.</p>

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known as "Mark Twain," left Missouri in 1861 to work with his brother, the newly appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory. Once settled in Nevada, Clemens fell victim to gold fever and went to the Humboldt mines. When prospecting lost its attractions, Clemens found work as a reporter in Virginia City. In 1864, Clemens moved to California and worked as a reporter in San Francisco. It was there that he began to establish a nationwide reputation as a humorist. Roughing it (1891), first published in 1872, is his account of his adventures in the Far West. He devotes twenty chapters to the overland journey by boat and stagecoach to Carson City, including several chapters on the Mormons. Next come chronicles of mining life and local politics and crime in Virginia City and San Francisco and even a junket to the Hawaiian Islands. The book closes with his return to San Francisco and his introduction to the lecture circuit.

This is Mark Twain's first novel about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, and it has become one of the world's best-loved books. It is a fond reminiscence of life in Hannibal, Missouri, an evocation of Mark Twain's own boyhood along the banks of the Mississippi during the 1840s. "Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred," he tells us. This is a book one never forgets: Tom whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence, Tom and Huck's dreadful oath, their cure for warts ("spunk water" and dead cats), Tom's puppy love for Becky Thatcher, the boys playing "pirate" on Jackson's Island

A collection of seven sketches which display his Twain's energy, imagination and sense of fun, as well as the satirical edge that marks all his work. "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed", one of the few pieces Twain wrote about his experiences in the Civil War, is included.

xliii, 209, 23 p. : 23 cm
Includes bibliographical references

2023-06-28