In The Mysterious Stranger, which was unfinished at the time of his death, Twain unleashes his sardonic, freewheeling wit to present deeply nihilistic philosophical and religious views in an audacious narrative that concludes with one of his most haunting lines. In 1590, three boys in a remote Austrian village are befriended by an attractive, charismatic stranger. Before he vanishes, the stranger devises supernatural ways to expose the boys to the puniness of existence, the violence that religious belief provokes, and sham that is human morality.
This Warbler Classics edition includes a close examination by Ryan Simmons of the history, philosophical insights, and literary merits of the original 1916 text of The Mysterious Stranger, as well as an extensive biographical timeline.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, arguably the greatest humorist the United States has ever produced and the author of travel narratives and novels that have shaped American literature. His most famous books include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Ryan Simmons is an English instructor at Spokane Falls Community College in Spokane, Washington. He is the author of Chesnutt and Realism, a book on Twain’s contemporary, Charles W. Chesnutt.
“[Mark Twain] was a literary artist of the very highest skill and sophistication….he was a destructive satirist of the utmost pungency and relentlessness, and the most bitter critic of American platitude and delusion, whether social, political, or religious, that ever lived.”
—H. L. Mencken
“[Twain’s] attitude is that of Swift, the intellectual contempt is that of Voltaire, and the imagination is that of one of the great masters of American writing.”
—The New York Times
Price: $8.95 (paperback) | $2.99 (ebook)
Pages: 124 pages
Book dimensions: 5.25 x 0.31 x 8 in
Pub date: April 12, 2022
978-1-957240-44-2 (paperback)
978-1-957240-45-9 (ebook)
