The complete collection of Mark Twain’s books and stories, with an active table of contents.


THE INNOCENTS ABROAD
MARK TWAIN’S (BURLESQUE) AUTO-BIOGRAPHY
FIRST ROMANCE.
ROUGHING IT
THE GILDED AGE (with Charles Dudley Warner)
SKETCHES NEW AND OLD
MY WATCH
POLITICAL ECONOMY
THE JUMPING FROG
JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE
THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY
THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY
A COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORE
NIAGARA
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS
TO RAISE POULTRY
EXPERIENCE OF THE MCWILLIAMSES WITH MEMBRANOUS CROUP
MY FIRST LITERARY VENTURE
HOW THE AUTHOR WAS SOLD IN NEWARK
THE OFFICE BORE
JOHNNY GREER
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT
THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER
DISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOY
THE JUDGES “SPIRITED WOMAN”
INFORMATION WANTED
SOME LEARNED FABLES, FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLS
MY LATE SENATORIAL SECRETARYSHIP
A FASHION ITEM
RILEY-NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT
A FINE OLD MAN
SCIENCE vs. LUCK
THE LATE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
MR. BLOKE’S ITEM
A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE
PETITION CONCERNING COPYRIGHT
AFTER-DINNER SPEECH
LIONIZING MURDERERS
A NEW CRIME
A CURIOUS DREAM
A TRUE STORY
THE SIAMESE TWINS
SPEECH AT THE SCOTTISH BANQUET IN LONDON
A GHOST STORY
THE CAPITOLINE VENUS
SPEECH ON ACCIDENT INSURANCE
JOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW YORK
HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER
THE PETRIFIED MAN
MY BLOODY MASSACRE
THE UNDERTAKER’S CHAT
CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS
AURELIA’S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN
“AFTER” JENKINS
ABOUT BARBERS
“PARTY CRIES” IN IRELAND
THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECANT RESIGNATION
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
HONORED AS A CURIOSITY
FIRST INTERVIEW KITH ARTEMUS WARD
CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS
THE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR “LOCALIZED”
THE WIDOW’S PROTEST
THE SCRIPTURAL PANORAMIST
CURING A COLD
A CURIOUS PLEASURE EXCURSION
RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR
A MYSTERIOUS VISIT
THE CURIOUS REPUBLIC OF GONDOUR AND OTHER WHIMSICAL SKETCHES
THE CURIOUS REPUBLIC OF GONDOUR
A MEMORY
INTRODUCTORY TO “MEMORANDA”.
ABOUT SMELLS
A COUPLE OF SAD EXPERIENCES
DAN MURPHY
THE “TOURNAMENT” IN A.D. 1870
CURIOUS RELIC FOR SALE
A REMINISCENCE OF THE BACK SETTLEMENTS
A ROYAL COMPLIMENT
THE APPROACHING EPIDEMIC
THE TONE-IMPARTING COMMITTEE
OUR PRECIOUS LUNATIC
THE EUROPEAN WAR
THE WILD MAN INTERVIEWED
LAST WORDS OF GREAT MEN
1601–CONVERSATION AT THE SOCIAL FIRESIDE OF THE TUDORS
THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT CARNIVAL OF CRIME IN CONNECTICUT
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON AND OTHER STORIES
THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON
ON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF LYING
ABOUT MAGNANIMOUS-INCIDENT LITERATURE
THE GRATEFUL POODLE
THE BENEVOLENT AUTHOR
THE GRATEFUL HUSBAND
PUNCH, BROTHERS, PUNCH
THE GREAT REVOLUTION IN PITCAIRN
THE CANVASSER’S TALE
AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER
PARIS NOTES
LEGEND OF SAGENFELD, IN GERMANY
SPEECH ON THE BABIES
SPEECH ON THE WEATHER
CONCERNING THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE
ROGERS
SOME RAMBLING NOTES OF AN IDLE EXCURSION
THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT
A TRAMP ABROAD
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT
THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT
EXTRACTS FROM ADAM’S DIARY
IN DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY
FENNIMORE COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENCES
ESSAYS ON PAUL BOURGET
WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US
A LITTLE NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET
TOM SAWYER ABROAD
THE TRAGEDY OF PUDD’NHEAD WILSON
THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC
TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
and many more…

According to Wikipedia: “The Douay-Rheims Bible, also known as the Rheims-Douai Bible or Douai Bible and abbreviated as D-R, is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. The New Testament was published in one volume with extensive commentary and notes in 1582. The Old Testament followed in 1609–10 in two volumes, also extensively annotated. The notes took up the bulk of the volumes and had a strong polemical and patristic character. They also offered insights on issues of translation, and on the Hebrew and Greek source texts of the Vulgate. The purpose of the version, both the text and notes, was to uphold Catholic tradition in the face of the Protestant Reformation which was heavily influencing England. As such it was an impressive effort by English Catholics to support the Counter-Reformation. Although the Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible (in the United States), the Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version and the New Jerusalem Bible are the most commonly used in English-speaking Catholic churches, the Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims is still often the Bible of choice of English-speaking Traditionalist Catholics.” In response to a customer request, we improved the formatting of this file on 8/4/2009. If you bought a copy before that date, you should be able to download the new version at no extra charge. Suggestions always welcome. seltzer@samizdat.com

Our Mutual Friend (written in the years 1864–65) is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is in many ways one of his most sophisticated works, combining deep psychological insight with rich social analysis. At one level it centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, “money, money, money, and what money can make of life” but in a deeper sense it also about ‘human values’. In the opening chapter, a young man is on his way to receive his inheritance, which, according to his father’s will, he can claim only if he marries Bella Wilfer, a beautiful, mercenary girl whom he has never met. However, before he can arrive, a body is found in the Thames and identified as him. The money passes on, instead, to the working-class Boffins, and the effects spread throughout various corners of London society.

(Wikipedia)

Little Dorrit is a serial novel by Charles Dickens published originally between 1855 and 1857. It is a work of satire on the shortcomings of the government and society of the period.

Much of Dickens’ ire is focused upon the institutions of debtors’ prisons—in which people who owed money were imprisoned, unable to work, until they repaid their debts. The representative prison in this case is the Marshalsea where the author’s own father had been imprisoned.

Most of Dickens’ other critiques in this particular novel concern the social safety net: industry, and the treatment and safety of workers; the bureaucracy of the British Treasury (as figured in the fictional “Circumlocution Office” [Bk. 1, Ch. 10]); and the separation of people based on the lack of intercourse between the classes.

(Wikipedia)

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (known popularly as The History) was written by English historian Edward Gibbon and published in six volumes.

[Source: Wikipedia.org]

“Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz (pronounced /ˈklaʊzəvɪts/; July 1, 1780[1] – November 16, 1831) was a Prussian soldier, military historian and military theorist. He is most famous for his military treatise Vom Kriege, translated into English as On War.

Vom Kriege (On War) is a long and intricate investigation of Clausewitz’s observations based on his own experience in the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and on considerable historical research into those wars and others. It is shaped not only by purely military and political considerations but by Clausewitz’s strong interests in art, science, and education.” (Description obtained from Wikipedia)

This is one of the most inspiring works of all time; one of the top selling books of all time. Charles Sheldon captors the hearts of the Follower and non-follower alike in this intriguing Christian principal book of everyday life.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ARABIC BY THE REV. J.M. RODWELL, M.A. WITH AN
INTRODUCTION BY THE REV. G. MARGOLIOUTH, M.A.

INTRODUCTION

THE Koran admittedly occupies an important position among the great religious
books of the world. Though the youngest of the epoch-making works belonging
to this class of literature, it yields to hardly any in the wonderful effect
which it has produced on large masses of men. It has created an all but new
phase of human thought and a fresh type of character. It first transformed a
number of heterogeneous desert tribes of the Arabian peninsula into a nation
of heroes, and then proceeded to create the vast politico-religious
organisations of the Muhammedan world which are one of the great forces with
which Europe and the East have to reckon to-day.

Little Women (or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy) is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). Written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, it was published in two parts in 1868 and 1869. The novel follows the lives of four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March—and is loosely based on the author’s childhood experiences with her three sisters. The first part of the book was an immediate commercial and critical success and prompted the composition of the book’s second part, also a huge success. Both parts were first published as a single volume in 1880. Alcott followed Little Women with two sequels reprising the March sisters, Little Men (1871) and Jo’s Boys (1886). Little Women has been adapted to play, musical, opera, film, and animated feature. (Description obtained from Wikipedia)

Active Table of Contents works by clicking on the chapter # in the table of contents. This will navigate you to that chapter.

Chapter Navigation works by clicking on any chapter heading. This will navigate you back to the table of contents.

Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens’s finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. The story is told partly by the novel’s heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly but depressive John Jarndyce and the childish Harold Skimpole.

At the novel’s core is a long-running litigation in England’s Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. This case revolves around a testator who apparently made several wills, all of them seeking to bequeath monies and land surrounding the Manor of Marr in South Yorkshire. The litigation, which already has consumed years and sixty to seventy thousand pounds sterling in court costs, is emblematic of the failure of Chancery. Dickens’s assault on the flaws of the British judiciary system is based in part on his own experiences as a law clerk, and in part on his experiences as a Chancery litigant seeking to enforce his copyright on his earlier books. His harsh characterisation of the slow, arcane Chancery law process gave memorable form to pre-existing widespread frustration with the system. Though Chancery lawyers and judges criticized Dickens’s portrait of Chancery as exaggerated and unmerited, his novel helped to spur an ongoing movement that culminated in enactment of legal reform in the 1870s. In fact, Dickens was writing just as Chancery was reforming itself, with the Six Clerks and Masters mentioned in Chapter One abolished in 1842 and 1852 respectively: the need for further reform was being widely debated. These facts raise an issue as to when Bleak House is actually set. Technically it must be before 1842, and at least some of his readers at the time would have been aware of this. However, there is some question as to whether this timeframe is consistent with some of the themes of the novel. The great English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth , set the action in 1827.

(Wikipedia)