американская литература

Written for the Atlantic magazine in 1877, this is a collection of stories about a trip Mark Twain made with some friends to Bermuda.

The book bears no relationship to Twain's actual life. The two short stories present fictional characters who are supposedly part of Twain's lineage.

"The Purloined Letter" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe. It is the third of his three detective stories featuring the fictional C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being «The Murders in the Rue Morgue» and «The Mystery of Marie Rogêt».…

"The Fall of the House of Usher" recounts the terrible events that befall the last remaining members of the once-illustrious Usher clan before it is―quite literally―rent asunder. With amazing economy, Poe plunges the reader into a state of deliciousl…

The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. The intense darkness oppressed and stifled me so that I struggled for breath.Having been condemned to death by the Spanish Inquisition, the narrator descends into a kind of hell. Dizzy with weakness and …

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his «tales of ratiocination».

"The Mystery of Marie Rogêt", often subtitled A Sequel to «The Murders in the Rue Morgue», is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe written in 1842. This is the first murder mystery based on the details of a real crime. It first appeared in Snowden's Ladi…

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sanity, while describing a murder he committed. (The victim was an old man with a filmy «…

"The American Claimant" is a comedy of mistaken identities and multiple role switches―fertile and familiar Mark Twain territory. Its cast of characters include an American enamored of British hereditary aristocracy and a British earl entranced by Ame…

Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is sometimes considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emergi…

"Eureka" (1848) is a lengthy non-fiction work by American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) which he subtitled «A Prose Poem», though it has also been subtitled as «An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe». Adapted from a lecture he had pres…

One of the most renowned public speakers of his day, Mark Twain was often asked to give speeches to mark public holidays or important anniversaries, for school graduations, at banquets for distinguished visitors, and at events sponsored by charitable…

A real storyteller can make a great story out of anything, even the most trivial occurrence. The candid, ironic, playful, and petulant sketches are indispensable to our understanding of a harried genius during thirteen quite amazing years.

The letters of Mark Twain are peculiarly of the revealing sort. He was a man of few restraints and of no affectations. In his correspondence, as in his talk, he spoke what was in his mind, untrammeled by literary conventions.

Bringing together 38 tales and sketches, «The 30 000 Dollar Bequest and Other Stories» provides a rare long view of Twain's work, covering virtually his entire career, from «Advice to Young Girls» (a spoof that appeared in 1865, just months before he…

Mark Twain began writing his autobiography long before the 1906 publications of "Chapters from my Autobiography". He originally planned to have his memoirs published only after his death but realized, once he’d passed his 70th year, that a lot of the…

A Double Barreled Detective Story is a short story/novelette. The story is a delightful spoof of the mystery genre, then in its infancy, introducing the reader to Sherlock Holmes as he has never been seen before or since. Far from his usual elegant L…

FROM THE PUBLISHER Martin Eden, Jack London's semiautobiographical novel about a struggling young writer, is considered by many to be the author's most mature work. Personifying London's own dreams of education and literary fame as a young man in Sa…

This rousing sea adventure follows a New England boy, Pym, who stows away on a whaling ship with its captain's son, Augustus. The two boys, who find themselves repeatedly on the brink of discovery or death, witness many hair-raising events, including…