The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut The Stolen White Elephant Luck The £1,000,000 Bank-Note The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg The Five Boons of Life Was It Heaven? Or Hell? The Mysterious Stranger The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories unites nine of master American humorist Mark Twain’s most accomplished works. From tall tales of con men’s tricks, such as the classic that brought him instant fame, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” to a man with no money (other than a £1,000,000 banknote that no one can cash), to an exposé of greed and hypocrisy in perhaps his greatest short story, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” Twain showcases his notorious humor—skewering policemen, clergymen, politicians, bankers, and others—and displays his changing attitude toward human nature. The finale is the novella The Mysterious Stranger , a rarity for Mark Twain in which he turns his sardonic, freewheeling wit on eternal evil in a distant time and place—and conjures a memorable, tormenting conclusion.