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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books; for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved, and the heart.’Set in 16th-Century England and following the lives of two young boys, The Prince and the Pauper is a classic and timeless tale. Tom Canty, the lowly pauper is almost identical in appearance to Edward Tudor, a prince. Unbeknownst to those around them, the boys strike up an unlikely friendship and soon realise that with their similar looks they could easily pass for one another.When the Prince’s father dies, some of the more underhand court officials persuade the pauper to act as the Prince in order to reap the benefits of the ‘mistake’ and there follows a tale of friendship and growing up in one of Mark Twain’s most infamous works.

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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘Now he found out a new thing – namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.’An idyllic snapshot of a boy’s childhood along the banks of the Mississippi River, Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the author’s work that comes closest to his boyhood experiences of growing up in Hannibal in the 1840s.Mischievous and full of energy, Tom enjoys childish pranks and pastimes with his friends, Huck Finn, the town outcast and Joe Harper, his best friend. However, at the town graveyard, Huck and Tom witness a murder, carried out by local vagabond Injun Joe. They vow never to tell a soul about what they have seen and so begins their journey into adulthood as Tom wrestles with his own morality, guilt and anxiety.A ‘coming of age’ tale, it is through Tom’s adventures and relationships with others that he becomes more responsible and more aware of his own inner conflict. Through the central characters of Tom and Huck, Twain satirises the moral rigidity of society and adult hypocrisy, whilst at the same time giving a nostalgic portrayal of a young boy’s journey into adulthood.

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HarperCollins is proud to present a range of best-loved, essential classics.'We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.'Huck Finn escapes from his alcoholic father by faking his own death and so begins his journey through the Deep South, seeking independence and freedom. On his travels, Huck meets an escaped slave, Jim, who is a wanted man, and together they journey down the Mississippi River. Raising the timeless and universal l issues of prejudice, bravery and hope, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was and still is considered the great American novel.

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The surprising final chapter of a great American life. When the first volume of Mark Twain’s uncensored Autobiography was published in 2010, it was hailed as an essential addition to the shelf of his works and a crucial document for our understanding of the great humorist’s life and times. This third and final volume crowns and completes his life’s work. Like its companion volumes, it chronicles Twain's inner and outer life through a series of daily dictations that go wherever his fancy leads. Created from March 1907 to December 1909, these dictations present Mark Twain at the end of his life: receiving an honorary degree from Oxford University; railing against Theodore Roosevelt; founding numerous clubs; incredulous at an exhibition of the Holy Grail; credulous about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays; relaxing in Bermuda; observing (and investing in) new technologies. The Autobiography’s «Closing Words» movingly commemorate his daughter Jean, who died on Christmas Eve 1909. Also included in this volume is the previously unpublished «Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript,» Mark Twain’s caustic indictment of his «putrescent pair» of secretaries and the havoc that erupted in his house during their residency. Fitfully published in fragments at intervals throughout the twentieth century, Autobiography of Mark Twain has now been critically reconstructed and made available as it was intended to be read. Fully annotated by the editors of the Mark Twain Project, the complete Autobiography emerges as a landmark publication in American literature. Editors: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith Associate Editors: Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Amanda Gagel, Sharon K. Goetz, Leslie Diane Myrick, Christopher M. Ohge

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Mark Twain’s complete, uncensored <i>Autobiography</i> was an instant bestseller when the first volume was published in 2010, on the centennial of the author’s death, as he requested. Published to rave reviews, the <i>Autobiography</i> was hailed as the capstone of Twain’s career. It captures his authentic and unsuppressed voice, speaking clearly from the grave and brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions.<br> <br> The eagerly-awaited Volume 2 delves deeper into Mark Twain’s life, uncovering the many roles he played in his private and public worlds. Filled with his characteristic blend of humor and ire, the narrative ranges effortlessly across the contemporary scene. He shares his views on writing and speaking, his preoccupation with money, and his contempt for the politics and politicians of his day. Affectionate and scathing by turns, his intractable curiosity and candor are everywhere on view.<br> <br> Editors: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet E. Smith<br> Associate Editors: Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Sharon K. Goetz and Leslie Diane Myrick<br>

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This is&#160;Mark Twain&#39;s first novel about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and it has become one of the world&#39;s best-loved books. It is a fond reminiscence of life in Hannibal, Missouri, an evocation of Mark Twain&#39;s own boyhood along the banks of the Mississippi during the 1840s. &quot;Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred,&quot; he tells us. The Mark Twain Library edition contains the only text since the first edition (1876) to be based directly on the author&#39;s manuscript and to include all of the &quot;200 rattling pictures&#39; Mark Twain commissioned from one of his favorite illustrators, True W. Williams. This landmark anniversary edition contains a selection of original documents by Mark Twain, including several letters in his inimitable voice about writing <I>Tom Sawyer</I> and about its original publication.<BR /> &#160;

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All of these selections in this volume were comosed between 1896 and 1905. Mark Twain wrote them after the disasters of the early and middle nineties that had included the decline into bankruptcy of his publishing business, the failure of the typsetting machine in which he invested heavily, and the death of his daughter Susy. Their principal fable is that of a man who has been long favored by luck while pursuing a dream of success that has seemed about to turn into reality. Sudden reverses occur and he experiences a nightmarish time of failure. He clutches at what may be a saving thought: perhaps he is indeed living in a nightmare from which he will awaken to his former felicity. But there is also the possibility that what seems a dream of disaster may be the actuality of his life. The question is the one asked by the titles that he gave to two of his manuscripts: «Which Was the Dream?» and «Which Was It?» He posed a similar question in 1893: «I dreamed I was born, and grew up, and was a pilot on the Mississippi, and a miner and journalist…and had a wife and children…and this dream goes on and on and <i>on</i>, and sometimes seems so real that I almost believe it is real. I wonder if it is?» Behind this naïve query was his strong interest in conscious and unconscious levels of mental experience, which were then being explored by the new psychology.

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This book publishes, for the first time in full, the two most revealing of Mark Twain’s private writings. Here he turns his mind to the daily life he shared with his wife Livy, their three daughters, a great many servants, and an imposing array of pets. These first-hand accounts display this gifted and loving family in the period of its flourishing.<BR /><BR /> Mark Twain began to write «A Family Sketch» in response to the early death of his eldest daughter, Susy, but the manuscript grew under his hands to become an exuberant account of the entire household. His record of the childrens’ sayings—"Small Foolishnesses"—is next, followed by the related manuscript «At the Farm.» Also included are selections from Livy’s 1885 diary and an authoritative edition of Susy’s biography of her father, written when she was a teenager. Newly edited from the original manuscripts, this anthology is a unique record of a fascinating family.<BR />

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The year 2010 marked the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death. In celebration of this important milestone and in honor of the cherished tradition of publishing Mark Twain’s works, UC Press published <i>Autobiography of Mark Twain,</i> Volume 1, the first of a projected three-volume edition of the complete, uncensored autobiography. The book became an immediate bestseller and was hailed as the capstone of the life’s work of America’s favorite author.<br /><br />This <i>Reader’s Edition,</i> a portable paperback in larger type, republishes the text of the hardcover <i>Autobiography</i> in a form that is convenient for the general reader, without the editorial explanatory notes. It includes a brief introduction describing the evolution of Mark Twain’s ideas about writing his autobiography, as well as a chronology of his life, brief family biographies, and an excerpt from the forthcoming Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2—a controversial but characteristically humorous attack on Christian doctrine.

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These unjustly neglected works, among the most enjoyable of Mark Twain's novels, follow Tom, Huck, and Jim as they travel across the Atlantic in a balloon, then down the Mississippi to help solve a mysterious crime. Both with the original illustrations by Dan Beard and A.B. Frost.<br /><br />"Do you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all them adventures? No, he wasn’t. It only just pisoned him for more." So Huck declares at the start of these once-celebrated but now little-known sequels to his own adventures. Tom, Huck, and Jim set sail to Africa in a futuristic air balloon, where they survive encounters with lions, robbers, and fleas and see some of the world’s greatest wonders.

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