Sketches New and Old

Twain's 1893 collection led by the famous tale of a penniless American handed a million-pound note in London. Eleven late-career sketches on luck, manners, and the comedy of mistaken status.

Mark Twain

A small-town couple inherit a windfall on paper and let it ruin them. The title novella anchors a 1906 collection that gathers Twain's most acerbic late short fiction.

Mark Twain

Eden seen from Adam's bewildered point of view. The 1893 sketch where Twain has the first man take notes on a noisy newcomer who keeps naming things.

Mark Twain

The companion piece to Extracts from Adam's Diary, told from Eve's side. Twain's 1905 sketch on Eden, naming, curiosity, and the woman who wonders why the man is so reluctant to talk.

Mark Twain

A sea captain dies, races a comet across the cosmos, and arrives at a heaven nothing like the Sunday-school version. Twain's posthumously expanded 1909 satire on the afterlife.

Mark Twain