Mark Twain's account of his transformation into a Westerner when he joins his brother, a newly appointed federal official, in Nevada.

A young boy living in mid-nineteenth century Missouri relates the many adventures that he and his friend Jim, an escaped slave, experience as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft.

This rather simple plot is a most compelling drama that bristles with suspense as it contains all the elements of a classic 19th-century mystery including, reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, and a tense courtroom scene. Set in the fictional frontier town of Dawson's Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the 19th century, the book turned from a farce to a tragedy in the course of Twain's writing...

These three travel memoirs by the beloved author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn capture nineteenth-century life in America and beyond. Life on the Mississippi : Before Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain, he trained to be a Mississippi River steamboat pilot. Here Twain recounts his apprenticeship under legendary captain Horace Bixby, the dramatic fates of riverboat gamblers, and much more. Years later, as a passenger on a voyage from St. Louis...

This lighthearted farce features an American under the spell of Britain's aristocracy and an English earl equally intrigued by American democracy. While eccentric inventor Colonel Mulberry Sellers attempts to pursue his claim to the earldom of Rossmore, the rightful heir determines to renounce his title and find a place in American society. When the young lord's identity is wiped out in a hotel fire, he's free to assume a new name and realize his...

Had there been no Civil War, the eminent American author known as Mark Twain would likely have spent his life as Sam Clemens, the Mississippi River steamboat pilot. When the war came and the steamboats stopped running, Clemens served two weeks in the Missouri State Guard before he fled west to begin his career as a writer. After the Civil War dramatically altered the course of Twain's life and career, his thoughts and stories about the war were published...

These four timeless classics of American fiction explore the trials of growing up and the hypocrisies of nineteenth-century American life. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : Escaping society, Huckleberry Finn and a runaway slave named Jim take a log raft down the Mississippi River. Their adventures draw them closer together until Huck must make a fateful choice between Jim's freedom and his own salvation. One of the first major novels written in...