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Mark Twain

Mark Twain’s Journal Writings, Volume 3 Audiobook Free: A Satirical Odyssey – Free Download

This third volume of Mark Twain’s journal writings continues on eclectic and varied path established by the first two volumes. Included in this collection are works that appeared by themselves in magazines during Twain’s lifetime, as well as essays taken by editors and Twain himself from Twain’s larger works, and re-published in collections of his stories. This volume includes the following works: “Buying Gloves in Gibraltar”, “The great revolution in Pitcairn”, “A Gift from India” [including editor’s notes about Twain’s need to go on the lecture circuit, his authorship of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and other items], “From India to South Africa”, “The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance”, “At the Appetitecure”, “Edward Mills and George Benton: A Tale”, “Does the Race of Man Love a Lord?” (Introduction by John Greenman)

Prince and the Pauper Audiobook Free: Twain’s Satire Shines – Free Download

The Prince and the Pauper (1882) represents Mark Twain’s first attempt at historical fiction. The book, set in 1547, tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court, London, and Prince Edward son of Henry VIII of England. Due to a series of circumstances, the boys accidentally replace each other, and much of the humor in the book originates in the two boys’ inability to function in the world that is so familiar to the other (although Tom soon displays considerable wisdom in his decisions). In many ways, the book is a social satire, particularly compelling in its condemnation of the inequality that existed between the classes in Tudor England. In that sense, Twain abandoned the wry Midwestern style for which he was best known and adopts a style reminiscent of Charles Dickens. (Summary from Wikipedia.org)

Adventures of Tom Sawyer Audiobook Free: Journey Through Missouri – Free Download

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (published 1876) is a very well-known and popular story concerning American youth. Mark Twain’s lively tale of the scrapes and adventures of boyhood is set in St. Petersburg, Missouri, where Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn have the kinds of adventures many boys can imagine: racing bugs during class, impressing girls, especially Becky Thatcher, with fights and stunts in the schoolyard, getting lost in a cave, and playing pirates on the Mississippi River.

One of the most famous incidents in the book describes how Tom persuades his friends to do a boring, hateful chore for him: whitewashing (i.e., painting) a fence.

This was the first novel to be written on a typewriter.

Drifting Down the Mississippi: A Travel Writer’s Take on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Audiobook – Free Download

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates an entertaining adventure of Middle America in the 1800’s – afloat on a raft on the Mississippi River. Huck escapes his civilized life when he arranges his own “murder” and turns back into the backwoods, downriver yokel he started as, and in the process springing a slave, Jim, from bondage.

Huck and Jim experience life as a series of tableaus as the river sweeps them through small towns on their way South. At each stop, Huck engages his talent for mixing fact with bald-faced lies to endlessly get himself out of situations… and of course, putting him into others!

Much has been written about the statement Twain is making about slavery in this book, but it’s really secondary to the story. The facts of how black people were treated in this period give Huck and Jim their license for life on the run. Modern listeners will be intrigued by the unencumbered life of the pair; they make do with coffee, fish from the river, and little else (but of course, when they do need something extra, they don’t mind helping themselves to it without recourse to money!)

Huck and Jim have run-ins with desperados and family feuds and even manage to get run down by a steamboat. The adventures ratchet up when they are joined on the raft by a self-proclaimed “duke” and a “king” – shysters both, who spend their time in figuring how to fleece the public in the little river towns. And when Jim is captured and threatened with being sent back into slavery, Huck enlists his old buddy Tom Sawyer in a frenzied, desperate, and terribly funny rescue.

I had to clip a lot of laughing from this recording at Twain’s sly, catch-’em-when-they’re-not-looking humor, but you can feel free to enjoy some good belly laughs at this crew of lovable rapscallions!