by Mark Twain
First published 1880
This collection showcases Mark Twain's revolutionary approach to American literature. Born in Missouri in 1835, Twain rejected the formal writing style of his contemporaries and instead crafted a new literary voice from everyday American speech. He transformed slangy, ungrammatical conversation into sophisticated art, creating an idiom that captured the wayward music of how Americans actually talked. The 29-volume Oxford Mark Twain gathers his major works alongside rare essays and short pieces that had been unavailable for decades. Each volume features introductions by acclaimed writers including Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, Cynthia Ozick, Gore Vidal, George Plimpton, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Walter Mosley. The collection preserves the original illustrations that accompanied Twain's work. Nearly nine decades after his death in 1910, Twain's books retain their power to both amuse and provoke readers, explaining why his mustachioed image remains instantly recognizable worldwide and why contemporary readers still find themselves stirred by this 19th-century author who described Tom Sawyer as simply a "boy's holiday book."
Genres: fiction, classics, american-fiction, 20th-century, american, 19th-century
Vibes: lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Missouri
Period: 19th-Century, 20th-Century
448 pages · Paperback · Penguin Classics