Mark Twain

The $30,000 Bequest Mark Twain

The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) is a collection of thirty comic short stories by the iconic American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The stories contained span the course of his career, from "Advice to Young Girls" in 1865 to the titular tale in 1904. Although Twain had ample time to refine his short stories between their original publication date and this collection, there is little evidence to suggest he took an active interest in doing so. "A Burlesque Biography" contains only a few minor technical revisions which make it different from the 1871 version found in Mark Twain's "(Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance."Whether he is probing the dynamics of a marriage in "The $30,000 Bequest," or tapping into the nature of hierarchies of abusive power in "A Dog's Tale," Twain's deft craftsmanship brings energy and life to his prose. The more preposterous his claim, the more diligent his proof--as in "The Danger of Lying in Bed," in which Twain argues--complete with statistics--that lying in bed (where most deaths occur) is more dangerous than traveling. The pieces collected here--alternately playful, poignant, and powerful--are all shaped by Twain's rich and unpredictable imagination. This book, the last miscellany published in his lifetime, captures the many facets of Mark Twain's work. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel," and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).