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Product Description
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If you're already familiar with Finn and Sawyer, perhaps this collection of fragments, short stories, and essays--assembled posthumously some few decades ago now, but still fresh--will enhance your sense of Twain's true range. A particular favorite: his essay "The Damned Human Race," wherein he proves, rather convincingly, that an anaconda snake is a higher form of life than an English Earl.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
This is a strange place, and extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at is worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the "noblest work of God." This is the truth I am telling you. And this is not a new idea with him, he has talked it through all the ages, and believed it. Believed it, and found nobody among all his race to laugh at it. Moreover -- if I may put another strain upon you -- he thinks he is the Creator's pet. He believes the Creator is proud of him; he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to Him, and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea? Fills his prayers with crude and bald and florid flatteries of Him, and thinks He sits and purrs over these extravagancies and enjoys them. He prays for help, and favor, and protection, every day; and does it with hopefulness and confidence, too, although no prayer of his has ever been answered. The daily affront, the daily defeat, do not discourage him, he goes on praying just the same. There is something almost fine about this perseverance. I must put one more strain upon you: he thinks he is going to heaven! He has salaried teachers who tell him that. They also tell him there is a hell, of everlasting fire, and that he will go to it if he doesn't keep the Commandments. What are Commandments? They are a curiosity. I will tell you about them by and by.
--This text refers to an alternate
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The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Satan's side of the story,
By Jack Purcell (Placitas, NM USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Letters From The Earth: Uncensored Writings (Paperback)
Letters from the Earth is an assortment of unpublished-for-60-years writings by Mark Twain. They cover a wide span of subject matter ranging from critiques of the prose style of another writer to the author's construction of the Old Testament and God from the perspective of Satan. In addition to Letters From Earth (Satan's), the contents includes Papers of the Adam Family, The Damned Human Race, Something About Repentance, Was the World Made For Man, In the Animal's Court, The Intelligence of God, The Lowest Animal and others.Readers who are offended by careful examinations of the meaning and implications of holy or sacred writings of the Old Testiment will not enjoy this book. The author, whatever his actual religious beliefs, probably wasn't an Old Testiment Christian. In this series of short writings he takes specific stories from the OT and holds them into the light away from the long traditions that accompany them in most of our minds. He examines the evidence of the stories for hints of what sort of creature God must be if the OT is true. He extropolates what Satan might be. I'm an admirer of this author and I believe everything he ever wrote is worth reading and digesting. I put this book alongside his best. But I also admit that if I harbored a microbe of religious fanatic somewhere inside me I'd be hard-pressed to enjoy reading Letters From the Earth.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
I can't believe no one has reviewed this book.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Letters From The Earth (Paperback)
I'm a big Twain fan but I'll keep it simple.This book, a collection really, is short and sweet. If you have any interest in: sociology (particularly American), religion (particularly American), cultural commentary (particularly American), trying to explain the human condition (not particularly American) or comedy, this is a very good selection. And it will take you only a matter of hours to dip into some of Twain's funniest--and prickly--thoughts. I mean it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Way ahead of his time,
By
This review is from: Letters From The Earth: Uncensored Writings (Paperback)
As much as I enjoyed his more famous books, it is actually this work that makes him even more genius to me. I was totally taken aback. His opinions on religion and the hypocrosy of it all were almost exactly as mine as I read along. I thought that no one was like that... let alone back then... but indeed he was. To know that such a great man felt the same way as I did regarding the Bible and human behavior brings me great comfort.I only wish he were alive so I could personally thank him.
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