Book excerpt: Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but he became a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies, and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, he combined rich humor, sturdy narrative, and social criticism in Huckleberry Finn. He was a master of rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. A complete bibliography of Twain's works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number of pieces he wrote (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names. This book contains more than 30 of the most famous and significant works of Mark Twain. Novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Stories The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Aurelia’s Unfortunate Young Man A Complaint about Correspondents, Dated in San Francisco Answers to Correspondents Among the Fenians The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn’t Come to Grief Curing a Cold An Inquiry about Insurances Literature in the Dry Diggings “After” Jenkins Lucretia Smith’s Soldier The Killing of Julius Cæsar “Localized” An Item Which the Editor Himself Could Not Understand Among the Spirits Brief Biographical Sketch of George Washington A Touching Story of George Washington’s Boyhood A Page from a Californian Almanac Information for the Million The Launch of the Steamer Capital Origin of Illustrious Men Advice for Good Little Girls Concerning Chambermaids Remarkable Instances of Presence of Mind Honored as a Curiosity in Honolulu The Steed “Oahu” A Strange Dream Short and Singular Rations A Letter from Santa Claus What Stumped the Blue Jays Essay On the Decay of the Art of Lying