The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass

by Mark Twain

Classic Mark Twain

59 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short, little book is a series of three letters that the young Samuel Langhorne Clemens had published in the Keokuk (Iowa) Daily Post before he became Mark Twain. Written in the vernacular, which is typical of him, he writes about his visit to St. Louis, where he sees Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar acted out. In the next story (letter), he describes a train ride he took to Chicago. In the last story, he writes about an adventure he experiences when a young woman gives him a covered basket, asks him to hold it til she returns, and when she never comes back, he uncovers the basket, only to discover an infant baby. How he reacts to this, his being duped, and his sudden responsibility in his being cast into “instant fatherhood,” is downright hilarious. All the stories are humorous, and how could they not be? After all, this is the one and only Mark Twain. “The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass” is so rare and hard to find that “The Complete Stories of Mark Twain” on Kindle does not even contain it. I had to hunt this down online. But it’s a treasure to read. How could I pass this up? My own Granny was born a Snodgrass, and for me, all things Snodgrass must be investigated and perused. I’m so glad I read it.