Mark Twain stories: humorous. Mark Twain stories: humorous The shortest work of Mark Twain to read

(estimates: 9 , average: 4,33 out of 5)

Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida. In fact, he was ill throughout his childhood, although this is not strange: as newspapers reported, only half of Americans lived to adulthood. Unknown diseases that raged in Florida at that time claimed the lives of countless people...

One of the entertainments in the childhood of the future writer was watching the arrival of the ship. Having matured, he no longer just watched the ships, but also controlled them. However, young Samuel was still that tomboy: he stole sweet apples and watermelons, hunted possums at night, and once even rolled a large boulder down the hill into the city (fortunately, only the coppersmith’s workshop was damaged). Clemens, like Tom Sawyer, wandered through a terrible cave - and, like his hero, one day he got lost there and almost died.

Samuel's father, John Clemens, left the family debts and an inheritance in the form of a plot of land. He died without knowing that the land, which he considered a priceless gift and source of wealth for his children, had become a heavy burden that all the Clemens had to bear.

Young Sam got a job at a newspaper, first at the Missouri Courier and later at the publishing house owned by his brother. In 1953, he realized that the job of a journalist-compositor did not bring joy, and he went on a journey. Without staying in one place for more than a week, he visited many American cities. Sam writes short essays about his travels and sends them to his brother: thus, the family newspaper is constantly updated with new materials.

His travels lead him aboard the old ship Paul Jones. Here Clemens becomes an apprentice to pilot Horace Bixby. After some time, Sam received a place on the large steamship Pennsylvania. He did not forget about the journalistic craft, but regularly sent his texts to New Orleans periodicals.

The gold rush also struck Clemens: he, like almost everyone else at that time, went in search of his tidbit. Trying in vain to make a fortune, Sam returned to writing - and a little later, on the same site, another man finally found the treasured gold. At the age of 27, Clemens finally decided to devote his life to creativity.

The pseudonym “Mark Twain” is associated with his past as a pilot: Mark twain literally translates as “mark two” (fathoms). This is about 4 meters deep, that is, the minimum depth for the free passage of ships. Working in the editorial office of the Enterprise, Samuel Clemens turns into the famous Mark Twain.

After the unexpected success of one of his stories, Mark decides to take a short break from journalism and go on a trip. In New York, he finds his love - Olivia Langdon, who will later become his editor-in-chief (despite the fact that she herself had a bourgeois worldview). As Twain said, she edited not only his works, but also himself.

For 10 years, Mark Twain and his family lived in many European countries - Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland. The beginning of the twentieth century brought heavy losses to the writer: three of his daughters and his wife passed away. He himself died on April 21, 1910, after witnessing Halley’s comet for the second time (it first flew over the Earth, oddly enough, in the year of his birth).

Mark Twain, bibliography

All books by Mark Twain:

1867 - “The Famous Jumping Frog of Calaveras,” collection of short stories
1868 - “The Story of Mamie Grant, Missionary Girl”
1869 — “Simps Abroad”
1871 — “The Tempered”
1873 - "The Gilded Age"
1875 — “Old and New Sketches”
1875 - "Old Times on the Mississippi"
1876 - ""
1881 — " "
1883 - "Life on the Mississippi"
1884 — "

Writing for the entertainment of the public may be commendable, but there is something incomparably more worthy and noble: writing for instruction and edification, for the genuine and truly tangible benefit of a person. It is for this reason that I took up the pen. If this article helps restore the health of at least one of my suffering brothers, if it rekindles the fire of joy and hope in his extinguished gaze, if it revives his frozen heart and it beats with the same strength and vigor - I will be generously rewarded for my efforts, my soul will be filled with sacred delight, which every Christian experiences who has committed a good, selfless act.

Leading a pure and blameless life, I have reason to believe that not a single person who knows me will neglect my advice, fearing that I intend to mislead him. So, let the reader take the trouble to familiarize himself with the experience of treating colds outlined in this article and then follow my example.

When the White House Hotel burned in Virginia City, I lost my home, my joy, my health, and my suitcase. The loss of the first two benefits mentioned was not so terrible. It is not so difficult to find a home where there is no mother, or sister, or young distant relative who cleans up your dirty laundry and takes your boots off the mantelpiece, thereby reminding you that there are people in the world who love you and about you are baking. And I reacted quite calmly to the loss of joy, because I am not a poet and I firmly know that sadness will not stay with me for long. But losing excellent health and a magnificent suitcase turned out to be a truly great misfortune. On the day of the fire, I caught a severe cold, the reason for which was excessive exertion when I was about to take fire-fighting measures. I suffered in vain, since my plan for extinguishing the fire was so complex that I was able to complete it only by the middle of the next week.

As soon as I started sneezing, one of my friends told me to give myself a hot foot bath and go to bed. That's what I did. Soon after, my second friend advised me to get out of bed and take a cold shower. I heeded this advice too. Less than an hour later, another friend assured me that the best treatment was to “nourish the cold and kill the fever.” I suffered from both. I decided, therefore, to first eat well, and then starve out the fever.

In matters of this kind I rarely limit myself to half measures, and therefore I ate quite heavily. I honored with my visit a restaurant that was opened for the first time that morning, the owner of which had recently arrived in our city. While I was nursing my cold, he stood beside me in respectful silence, and then inquired whether the people of Virginia City were very susceptible to colds. I replied that, perhaps, yes. Then he went outside and took down the sign.

I headed to the editorial office, but on the way I met another bosom friend who said that if anything could cure a cold, it would be a quart of water with salt, taken warm. I doubted whether there would still be room for it, but decided to give it a try anyway. The result was stunning. It seemed to me that I had cast out even my immortal soul.

Now, since I am sharing my experience solely for the sake of those who suffer from the type of health disorder described here, they, I am confident, will understand the propriety of my desire to warn them against a remedy that has proven ineffective for me. Acting on this belief, I say: do not take warm water with salt. Perhaps this measure is not bad, but, in my opinion, it is too steep. If I ever happen to catch a cold again and have only two medicines at my disposal - earthquake and warm water with salt - I will probably take a chance and choose earthquake.

When the storm in my stomach subsided and there was not a single Good Samaritan nearby, I began to do what I had already done in the early stages of a cold: I began to occupy handkerchiefs again, blowing into them with my nose so that they flew into shreds. But then I accidentally met a lady who had just returned from a mountainous area, and this lady said that in the area where she lived there were few doctors, and out of necessity she had to learn to heal the simplest “household ailments” herself. She, in fact, probably had considerable experience, because she looked about one and a half hundred years old.

She prepared a decoction of black molasses, strong vodka, turpentine and many other drugs and ordered me to take a full glass of it every quarter of an hour. I only took the first dose, but it was enough. This one glass tore from me, like a husk, all my high moral qualities and awakened the lowest instincts of my nature. Under the harmful effects of the potion, unimaginably vile plans arose in my brain, but I was unable to carry them out: my hands did not obey me well. The successive attacks of all the reliable remedies taken for colds undermined my strength, otherwise I would certainly have started robbing the graves in the neighboring cemetery. Like most people, I often experience base impulses and act accordingly. But before I took this last medicine, I had never discovered such monstrous depravity in myself, and I was proud of it. By the end of the second day I was ready to take up treatment again. I took a few more reliable cold remedies and finally drove it from my nasopharynx into my lungs.

I developed a continuous cough and my voice dropped below zero. I spoke in a thunderous bass voice, two octaves below my normal pitch. I fell asleep at night only after I had worked myself into complete exhaustion by coughing, but as soon as I began to talk in my sleep, my hoarse bass voice woke me up again.

My affairs were getting worse and worse every day. They advised me to drink ordinary gin - I drank it. Someone said gin and treacle is better. I drank that too. Someone else recommended gin and onions. I added onions to the gin and took it all at once - gin, molasses and onions. I didn’t notice much improvement, except that my breathing became like that of a vulture.

I decided that to improve my health I needed a resort. Together with my colleague, reporter Wilson, I went to Bigler Lake. I remember with satisfaction that our journey was arranged with sufficient splendor. We set out on horseback, and my friend had with him all his luggage, which consisted of two excellent silk handkerchiefs and a daguerreotype of my grandmother. We boated, hunted, fished and danced all day long, and at night I nursed a cough. By acting in this way, I expected that I would get better every hour. But my illness kept getting worse.

I was recommended to wrap myself in a wet sheet. Until now, I have not refused a single remedy, and it seemed unreasonable to me to become stubborn for no reason at all. So I agreed to take the wet sheet treatment, although I must admit I had no idea what it was. At midnight, the appropriate manipulations were performed on me, and the weather was frosty. They exposed my chest and back, took a sheet (I think there was at least a thousand yards of it), soaked it in ice water and then began to wrap it around me until I looked like a bath cloth used to clean the barrels of antediluvian cannons.

This is a harsh measure. When the wet, ice-cold fabric touches the warm skin, desperate convulsions take over your whole body - and you gasp for air, as happens to a person in the death throes. The burning cold penetrated me to the marrow of my bones, my heartbeat stopped.

I had already decided that my end had come.

Young Wilson recalled an anecdote about a black man who, during a baptismal ceremony, somehow slipped out of the hands of the pastor and nearly drowned. However, after floundering, he eventually emerged, barely breathing and beside himself with rage, and immediately moved towards the shore, throwing water out of himself like a fountain, like a whale and cursing at the top of his lungs that it was because of such nonsense some colored gentleman, lo and behold, is really going to drown!

How to treat a cold

I had already decided that my end had come.

Never treat yourself with a wet sheet, ever! The only thing worse than this is when you meet a lady you know and, for reasons known only to her, she looks at you but doesn’t notice, and when she notices, she doesn’t recognize you.

But, as I have already begun to tell you, treatment with a wet sheet did not get rid of my cough, and then one of my friends advised me to put mustard plaster on my chest. I think it would have really cured me if it hadn't been for young Wilson. When I went to bed, I took the mustard plaster - a magnificent mustard plaster, eighteen inches wide and eighteen inches long - and placed it so that it would be at hand when needed. Young Wilson got hungry at night and...: here's food for your imagination.

After a week's stay at Bigler Lake, I went to the Steamboat hot springs and there, in addition to steam baths, took a bunch of the most vile medicines ever concocted by man. They would have cured me, but I needed to return to Virginia City, where, despite the rich assortment of new drugs I absorbed daily, I managed, through carelessness and imprudence, to further aggravate my illness.

Finally I decided to go to San Francisco, and the first day after my arrival some lady at the hotel said that I should drink a quart of whiskey once a day. A friend of mine who lived in San Francisco advised exactly the same thing. They each recommended one quart—together that amounted to half a gallon. I drank half a gallon a day, and so far, as you can see, I’m alive.

So, motivated solely by a feeling of goodwill, I offer to the attention of the sufferer, exhausted by the disease, the entire motley selection of remedies that I have just tried myself. Let him test them for himself. If these remedies do not cure him, well, in the worst case, they will only send him to the next world.

Translation by N. Dekhtereva

Mark Twain; Mark Twain - pseudonym, real name - Samuel Langhorne Clemens; USA, Florida; 30.11.1835 – 21.03.1910

Mark Twain is one of the most famous American prose writers and journalists. As Ernest Hemingway argued, all American literature came from one book by Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But the author got into our rating thanks to another children's book, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” which is the backstory of Huckleberry Finn.

Biography of Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens was born in the small town of Florida, Missouri. Subsequently, Samuel's family moved to the city of Hannibal. Those who have visited this town and read “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” claim that the coincidence between the described and the real city is simply fantastic. And this is not surprising, because the author spent his childhood in the town of Hannibal, and here he took his first literary steps. And all this thanks to the printing house that his older brother ran.

Having entered adulthood. Samuel chose the profession of a steamship pilot, because the Missouri River passing near the city attracted many young people to travel. But the War of 1861 put an end to private shipping on the Missouri, forcing Clemens to find new work. But Samuel took his future pseudonym from that period of his life. “Mark Twain” in the language of sailors meant reaching the maximum permissible depth for a steamship of 2 fathoms.

Mark Twain wrote his first work in 1896, or rather he wrote it much earlier, but it was published in 1896. It was called “Innocents Abroad” and was simply a phenomenal success. The author wrote it during his trip to Europe. By the way, during this trip he visited a number of cities on the Black Sea coast of the Russian Empire. As he traveled, Mark Twain wrote his stories, which he sent to the newspaper editor. They were published as they were received, and were subsequently compiled into a single book.

Subsequent works only cemented the author's success. This allowed Mark Twain to be more resourceful and travel widely. It was from these travels that Clemens’s new books often appeared. But the author’s personal life did not work out. Three of Mark Twain's four children died, and his wife died in 1910. The business in which the writer invested went bankrupt, and if it weren’t for oil tycoon Henry Rogers, who helped the author a lot, things would have been very bad for him. Mark Twain managed to predict his death, so in 1909 he wrote that he was born at the moment when Halley's Comet was flying over the Earth, in a year it will fly by again, and I hope to leave with it.

Books by Mark Twain on the Top books website

Mark Twain entered our ranking of the top 100 books with the book “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” Despite the advanced age of the book, it is still in demand. After all, more than one generation in Russia has grown up on the adventures of Tom Sawyer and they also try to raise their children on this kind and instructive book. You can find out more about all of Mark Twain’s books below.

Mark Twain book list

The Famous Jumping Frog of Calaveras
The Story of Mamie Grant, the Missionary Girl
Simpletons abroad
Tempered
Gilded Age
Old and new essays
Old times on the Mississippi

Not like everyone else. Oddball, but very talented. Mark Twain is a writer whose novels are read and listened to on tape all over the world. Read Mark Twain's novels to your child, because every minute spent will give you as many emotions, empathy for the characters, simple but wise life decisions and their consequences as no fairy tale can give.

Notable Facts about Mark Twain

Ernest Hemingway said that Mark Twain's book about Huckleberry Finn is the best book there has ever been and never will be.
Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
The place of St. Petersburg in the novels about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn was invented by Twain by name, but it is assumed that he meant the city on the Mississippi River, where he lived as a teenager.

What are Mark Twain's novels about?

About being true to yourself, to your word.
About hatred of fake, insincere relationships.
About the unwillingness to put up with injustice and evil.

Mark Twain's works are largely autobiographical and can be read in one sitting. Mark put his vivid childhood impressions on paper with humor and at the same time all-consuming sadness. Together with the heroes of Mark Twain's novels, children will learn to be friends, make peace after quarrels and never betray.

Without a doubt, Mark Twain is the most famous American writer in Russia. Discover the author's books - you won't regret it!