Presents facsimile first editions of Twain's works that include all original illustrations. Each volume contains introductions by literary heavyweights including Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, Cynthia Ozick, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Walter Mosley, among others.

The Prince of Wales and a poor boy trade places.

"To no writer can the term 'American' more justly be applied than to the humorist whose Merry Tales are here presented." -Editor's Note, Merry Tales (1892) Merry Tales (1892) is a collection of seven humorous short stories written by Mark Twain in his quintessential satirical style. This collection includes Meisterschaft, a play where two young lovers conduct their courtship in beginning German; Luck, a funny sketch about the military and The Private History of a Campaign That Failed, this collection's most popular story about Twain's experiences during the Civil War. This jacketed hardcover replica of the 1892 edition of Merry Tales is a nice addition to the library of Mark Twain aficionados.

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 American 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. In the deluxe Signed Edition of The Oxford Mark Twain, limited to only 240 sets, each volume has been signed by both the author of the introduction and the author of the afterword. The Signed Edition also features a beautiful book plate signature page with a stamp distinguishing it as one of this remarkable limited edition. It will be a treasure for any book collector, any Twain devotee, and any lover of fine books and literature. 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.

"For those unaware—as I was until I read this book—that Mark Twain was one of America's early animal advocates, Shelley Fisher Fishkin's collection of his writings on animals will come as a revelation. Many of these pieces are as fresh and lively as when they were first written, and it's wonderful to have them gathered in one place." —Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation and The Life You Can Save “A truly exhilarating work. Mark Twain's animal-friendly views would not be out of place today, and indeed, in certain respects, Twain is still ahead of us: claiming, correctly, that there are certain degraded practices that only humans inflict on one another and upon other animals. Fishkin has done a splendid job: I cannot remember reading something so consistently excellent."—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and The Face on Your Plate "Shelley Fisher Fishkin has given us the lifelong arc of the great man's antic, hilarious, and subtly profound explorations of the animal world, and she's guided us through it with her own trademark wit and acumen. Dogged if she hasn't." —Ron Powers, author of Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain and Mark Twain: A Life

Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens), a former printer's apprentice, journalist, steamboat pilot, and miner, remains to this day one of the most enduring and beloved of America's great writers. Combining cultural criticism with historical scholarship, A Historical Guide to Mark Twain addresses a wide range of topics relevant to Twain's work, including religion, commerce, race, gender, social class, and imperialism. Like all of the Historical Guides to American Authors, this volume includes an introduction, a brief biography, a bibliographic essay, and an illustrated chronology of the author's life and times.