For deft plotting, riotous inventiveness, unforgettable characters, and language that brilliantly captures the lively rhythms of American speech, no American writer comes close to Mark Twain. This sparkling anthology covers the entire span of Twains inimitable yarn-spinning, from his early broad comedy to the biting satire of his later years.Every one of his sixty stories is here: ranging from the frontier humor of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, to the bitter vision of humankind in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, to the delightful hilarity of Is He Living or Is He Dead? Surging with Twains ebullient wit and penetrating insight into the follies of human nature, this volume is a vibrant summation of the career ofin the words of H. L. Menckenthe father of our national literature.From the Paperback edition.