Mark Twain is America’s—perhaps the world’s—best known humorous writer. Yet many commentators in his time and our own have thought of humor as merely an attractive surface feature rather than a crucial part of both the meaning and the structure of Twain’s writings. This book begins with a discussion of humor, and then demonstrates how Twain’s artistic strategies, his remarkable achievements, and even his philosophy were bound together in his conception of humor, and how this conception developed across a forty-five year career. Kolb shows that Twain is a writer whose lifelong mode of perception is essentially humorous, a writer who sees the world in the sharp clash of contrast, whose native language is exaggeration, and whose vision unravels and reorganizes our perceptions. Humor, in all its mercurial complexity, is at the center of Mark Twain’s talent, his successes, and his limitations. It is as a humorist—amiably comic, sharply satiric, grimly ironic, simultaneously humorous and serious—that he is best understood.

"Now if there is any one class of their authors whom the American people do know rather better than any other, it is the American humorists, from Washington Irving to Bill Nye... We have tried to arrange our Library so as to include passages representative of every period and section." -The Associate Editors in the modern Introduction to Mark Twain's Library of Humor (1888) Mark Twain's Library of Humor (1875) is a collection of short humorous stories compiled by Mark Twain, including his own essays and those of other popular contemporary writers, such as Washington Irving, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ambrose Bierce, and many others. This jacketed hardcover replica of the 1888 edition of Mark Twain's Library of Humor, with the authentic illustrations by E. W. Kemble, is an entertaining and humorous book for book lovers and Mark Twain aficionados.

Challenging mainstream Twain criticism on many fronts, Florence focuses exclusively on Twain's early writings. He demonstrates how Twain evolved in his early narratives into the "Mark Twain" we now recognize. Florence maintains that this process was evolutionary: Although Twain might have been dependent on Clemens for the initial experiences, they become Twain's experiences, necessary for his development as a persona. Traditionally, critics of Twain have been preoccupied with dualities, but Florence sees this emphasis upon polarities as an oversimplification. He argues that much of Twain's humor strives to shape more and more of the world, giving Twain multiple narrative voices and letting him be inclusive, not exclusive. Finally, this study asserts that there is more continuity to Mark Twain's career than has been generally recognized. Many Twain scholars have argued that Twain's later writings are radically different from his earlier writings because of their emphasis upon illusion and dream. Florence argues that the preoccupation with illusion and fantasy is scarcely new. Whether Twain's mood is exuberant or dark, he emphasizes subjectivity over objectivity, the dominance of fantasy, the creative powers of humor, and his ability as persona to determine what we consider "reality". Florence contends that Twain's early writings show Mark Twain gradually evolving into a masterfully comic persona.

Samuel L. Clemens lost the 1882 lawsuit declaring his exclusive right to use “Mark Twain” as a commercial trademark, but he succeeded in the marketplace, where synergy among his comic journalism, live performances, authorship, and entrepreneurship made “Mark Twain” the premier national and international brand of American humor in his day. And so it remains in ours, because Mark Twain's humor not only expressed views of self and society well ahead of its time, but also anticipated ways in which humor and culture coalesce in today's postindustrial information economy—the global trade in media, performances, and other forms of intellectual property that began after the Civil War. In Twain's Brand: Humor in Contemporary American Culture, Judith Yaross Lee traces four hallmarks of Twain's humor that are especially significant today. Mark Twain's invention of a stage persona, comically conflated with his biographical self, lives on in contemporary performances by Garrison Keillor, Margaret Cho, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jon Stewart. The postcolonial critique of Britain that underlies America's nationalist tall tale tradition not only self-destructs in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but also drives the critique of American Exceptionalism in Philip Roth's literary satires. The semi-literate writing that gives Adventures of Huckleberry Finn its “vernacular vision”—wrapping cultural critique in ostensibly innocent transgressions and misunderstandings—has a counterpart in the apparently untutored drawing style and social critique seen in The Simpsons, Lynda Barry's comics, and The Boondocks. And the humor business of recent decades depends on the same brand-name promotion, cross-media synergy, and copyright practices that Clemens pioneered and fought for a century ago. Twain's Brand highlights the modern relationship among humor, commerce, and culture that were first exploited by Mark Twain.

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 Twain’s 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 Twain’s ebullient wit and penetrating insight into the follies of human nature, this volume is a vibrant summation of the career of–in the words of H. L. Mencken–“the father of our national literature.”

This is the first and most complete collection of all 136 humorous sketches and tales that Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), a.k.a. Mark Twain, started writing as a young reporter for various newspapers and magazines and later saw fit to issue in book form. Many pieces appeared in rare, first printings, only to be dropped in subsequent editions; for this reason, readers will encounter a number of yarns and tall tales unavailable elsewhere, even in the collected works. More unvarnished than his short stories or novels, and more willing to indulge in fun for its own sake, these sketches comprise a substantial share of his literary apprenticeship and legacy. As brilliant, representative nuggets of Twain's humor in its purest form, they carry the imprint of Twain's wit, imagination, and humanism, his fresh and always idiomatic prose. From 1862's "Curing a Cold" to 1904's "Italian Without a Master," this collection allows readers to share Twain's vision of life as a strange and comic affair. No one interested in American humor (or in need of a good laugh) can long remain indifferent to this uproarious book.

Mark Twain, American Humorist examines the ways that Mark Twain’s reputation developed at home and abroad in the period between 1865 and 1882, years in which he went from a regional humorist to national and international fame. In the late 1860s, Mark Twain became the exemplar of a school of humor that was thought to be uniquely American. As he moved into more respectable venues in the 1870s, especially through the promotion of William Dean Howells in the Atlantic Monthly, Mark Twain muddied the hierarchical distinctions between class-appropriate leisure and burgeoning forms of mass entertainment, between uplifting humor and debased laughter, and between the literature of high culture and the passing whim of the merely popular.

Compares humorous stories Twain told publicly and privately with those wrongly attributed to him, and discusses his development as a speaker.

"Familiarity breeds contempt — and children." "When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear." "Heaven for climate. Hell for company." This attractive paperback gift edition of the renowned American humorist's epigrams and witticisms features hundreds of quips on life, love, history, culture, travel, and other topics from his fiction, essays, letters, and autobiography.