A Dog's Tale and Selected Stories by Mark Twain Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but he became a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies, and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, he combined rich humor, sturdy narrative, and social criticism in Huckleberry Finn. He was a master of rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language.

The two short animal stories in this book are written by Mark Twain. They are “A Dogs Tale” and “The Stolen White Elephant”. A DOGS TALE is told from the perspective of a loyal pet, starting with first sentence of the story, “My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I’m a Presbyterian.” This is followed by a description of the life of the dog as a puppy and its separation from its mother. When a fire breaks out in the nursery, the dog risks his life to drag the child to safety. In the process, her are motives misunderstood and cruelly beaten. This mirrors the legend of Prince Llewellyn 1st of Wales and his loyal dog. Soon, however, the truth about the situation and she discovered endless praise. Later in history, his puppy dies after his owner conducted biological experiments. Only a servant seems to realize the irony and said, “Poor little dog, you saved his child!” Ultimately, the dog is inconsolable and pines at the tomb of the puppy with clear implications that it will do so until death In THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT, a detective mystery, a Siamese (Thai) white elephant, en route from Siam to Britain as a gift to Queen Victoria, breaks free and disappears in New Jersey. The local police department goes into high gear to solve the mystery. The elephant’s actions and movements are related in a number of telegrams sent by the detectives tracking the animal. The inspector becomes suspicious of the telegram’s content and tracks down the elephant himself, unfortunately with tragic consequences. ============ KEYWORDS/TAGS: fairy tales, Animal stories, childrens book, folklore, myths, legends, children’s stories, childrens stories, bygone era, ethereal, fairy land, classic stories, famous authors, Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens, children’s bedtime stories, childrens books, happy place, happiness, laughter, A dogs tale, The Stolen White Elephant, puppy, pine, loyal, loyalty, save, fire, rescue, scold, praise, ignore, White Elephant, enroute, India, England, Queen Victoria, New York, escape, break free, steal, hide, false, reports, investigate, actions,

For deft plotting, riotous inventiveness, unforgettable characters, and language that brilliantly captures the lively rhythms of American speech, no American writer comes close to Mark Twain. This sparkling anthology covers the entire span of Twain’s inimitable yarn-spinning, from his early broad comedy to the biting satire of his later years. Every one of his sixty stories is here: ranging from the frontier humor of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” to the bitter vision of humankind in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” to the delightful hilarity of “Is He Living or Is He Dead?” Surging with Twain’s ebullient wit and penetrating insight into the follies of human nature, this volume is a vibrant summation of the career of–in the words of H. L. Mencken–“the father of our national literature.”

For nearly two decades before Mark Twain published his finest novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he was refining his craft and winning tremendous popularity with his short stories and sketches. This richly entertaining and comprehensive collection presents sixty-five of the very best of Mark Twain’s short pieces, from the classic frontier sketch “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” to the richly imaginative fable “Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven.” Compiled by Pulitzer Prize–winning Twain scholar and biographer, Justin Kaplan, this collection represents some of Mark Twain’s wittiest and most insightful writing.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910), more commonly known under the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, lecturer, publisher and entrepreneur most famous for his novels “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876) and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1884). He also wrote a number of successful short stories, the very best of which are contained within this brand new collection. They include: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, “A Dog's Tale”, “Eve's Diary”, “The $30,000 Bequest”, “The Stolen White Elephant”, “The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton”, “Legend of Sagenfeld, in Germany”, “The Californian's Tale”, “Was it Heaven? Or Hell?”, “The £1,000,000 Bank-Note”, “Luck”, and “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg”. A fantastic collection of classic short stories not to be missed by fans and collectors of Twain's unforgettable work. Other notable works by this author include: “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” (1873) and “The Prince and the Pauper” (1881). Read & Co. Classics is proudly publishing this brand new collection of classic short stories now complete with a specially-commissioned biography of the author.

Rich in history and drama, Dog Tales entertains, enlightens, and inspires dog owners and dog lovers. These are enduring stories that have passed the test of time and have attracted generations of readers. Emerging from the prose in these pages are gallant dogs, facing incredible dangers and tasks. Loyal and affectionate dogs, unforgettable in the memories of the owners who shared their lives. These stories have been carefully selected for the imaginative reader who loves dogs—the people who agree with Will Rogers that, “If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”