The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain

The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain PDF

Author: Mark Twain

Publisher: Bantam Classics

Published: 2005-09-27

Total Pages: 850

ISBN-13: 0553901966

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

For deft plotting, riotous inventiveness, unforgettable characters, and language that brilliantly captures the lively rhythms of American speech, no American writer comes close to Mark Twain. This sparkling anthology covers the entire span of Twain’s inimitable yarn-spinning, from his early broad comedy to the biting satire of his later years. Every one of his sixty stories is here: ranging from the frontier humor of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” to the bitter vision of humankind in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” to the delightful hilarity of “Is He Living or Is He Dead?” Surging with Twain’s ebullient wit and penetrating insight into the follies of human nature, this volume is a vibrant summation of the career of–in the words of H. L. Mencken–“the father of our national literature.”

The California Tales

The California Tales PDF

Author: Mathew Kinsella

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2009-08-20

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 1469101114

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Exhibit-A To dream the im-poss-ible dream to fight the un-beat-able foe to run where the brave (or wise) dare not go -From the Broadway production of The Man of La Mancha, music by Darien and Leigh, 1965 Gracing the awesome coastline of California like a set of stained glass and adobe rosary beads, the 18th-century chain of twenty-one old Spanish missions offer the modern tourist a window into the history of the golden state at once colorful, quaint, often romanticized and just possibly not as benign as the tourist literature would lead us to believe. Investigating just that possibility, three amateur researchers have uncovered an historic mission artifact that, proven authentic, could shaken the golden state to its foundations. Nor would the repercussions end there, cautioned research director Brother Kolbe. Not by a long shot. At the state capitol in Sacramento, the governors Mission Affairs Department, and entrenched bereaucrazy representing the vested interest of the church, civic groups, university and private concerns, is naturally interested in the discovery. With real estate totaling in the multi-billion dollar range, including treasure troves of priceless relics and artwork, the Mission Affairs Department is somewhat hesitant at relinquishing control of their flock of iconic golden geese. Exposing the scandalous mission hullabaloo to the light of day may very well, researcher Samara Del Rio smiled with a perfectly beatific malfeasance, induce a state of anarchy. This my quest, to follow that star no matter how hopeless, no matter how far Along with Sam, ostensibly the team sociologist; Franciscan Brother and linguist Kolbe McCeanna and computer technician Felicia Bonaventura have tracked the legendary article to the derelict ruins of a minor auxiliary mission, Mision Estancia San Micmac, abandoned deep in the cathedral redwoods of Californias rugged pacific coast foothills. Exhibit-A.: as Sacramento knows, the notorious artifact is a legendary mission document lost since the colonial era, and thought to be a Spanish translation of aboriginal petroglyphs, entitled Las Cuentitas Primaveritas de Isla Califia. Past as prologue, a highly divisive work of folkloric Outside Art, colonial-era historians date the slim manuscript to the year 1561. Spakespearean scholars, however, citing key internal references to The Bards colonial-era play The Tempest, insist that the text is no older that the year 1611. Anti-Stratfordians, of course, call the Spakespearean theory leaky as an unstaunched wench. Adding to the debate, pre-Columbian archivists at Villa Poggio Gherado in Canterbury, England claim tevidence supporting a composition date of 1348. Equally divided, modern pundits dismiss Las Cuentitas as nothing more than psychosocial gibberish and third-rate poetic doggerel anyway, or else venerate the document as instrumental to a radical psychosocial transformation. Either way, if birds of a feather flock together than the infamous manuscript resembles a traditional book to the extent a penguin resembles an ostrich. [Embedded in translation throughout the plot of The California Tales], Las Cuentitas represents an extraordinary multimedia-literary genre suppressed censored and banned since the 1960s as irredeemably subversive to the status quo. During its brief hayday in the sun, the tempestuous genre was known as Prosperos Salient Heliotropic Articulation Grids: pSHAGs. And, particularly threatening to the dominate paradigm, pSHAG poetry, (or poemetry), was known, rather tongue-in-cheek, as Teleothanantological Neuropeptidal Algorithms: T.N.A.s. Moreover, reputedly encrypted within a Prospero SHAG TNA are the sole surviving fragments of the theoretical Archetypical Tale: the mother of all manuscripts, the lore at the core. Archetypical Tale theorists insist that this so-called consummate communiqu is simultaneously primordial and pansophic, pro

Spooky Texas

Spooky Texas PDF

Author: S. E. Schlosser

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2008-08-13

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1461746442

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Suitably, hauntings and paranormal happenings in the Lone Star state are larger than life. Included in this must-read collection are tales of the ghost lights of Marfa, the werewolf of Elroy, and the Devil’s brand in the eternal roundup of El Paso. Your hair will stand on end as you read about the mysteries and lore in Spooky Texas.

Hellacious California!

Hellacious California! PDF

Author: Gary Noy

Publisher: Heyday Books

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781597144995

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In 1855 an ex-miner lamented that nineteenth-century California "can and does furnish the best bad things," including "purer liquors...finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives, and prettier courtezans [sic]" than anywhere else in America. Lured by boons of gold and other exploitable resources, California's settler population mushroomed under Mexican and early American control, and this period of rapid transformation gave rise to a freewheeling culture best epitomized by its entertainments. Hellacious California tours the rambunctious and occasionally appalling amusements of the Golden State: gambling, gun duels, knife fights, gracious dining and gluttony, prostitution, fandangos, cigars, con artistry, and the demon drink. Historian Gary Noy unearths myriad primary sources, many of which have never before been published, to spin his true tall tales that are by turns humorous and horrifying. Whether detailing the exploits of an inebriated stallion, gambling parlors as a reinforcement and subversion of racial norms, armed skirmishes over eggs, or the ins and outs of the "Spirit Lover" scam, Noy expertly situates these stories in the context of a live-for-the-moment society characterized by audacity, bigotry, and risk. Published in collaboration with Sierra College Press.

Gold Fever!

Gold Fever! PDF

Author: Rosalyn Schanzer

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2007-01-09

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 9781426300400

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The author uses lighthearted illustrations and excerpts from letters, journals, and newspaper articles to relate the story of the California Gold Rush of 1848. Full color.

Gold Miners & Guttersnipes

Gold Miners & Guttersnipes PDF

Author: Mark Twain

Publisher: San Francisco : Chronicle Books

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This classic Chronicle book remains available as a print-on-demand title. You can purchase it from an online bookseller or by order from your local bookstore.

Abalone Tales

Abalone Tales PDF

Author: Les W. Field

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2008-08-29

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0822391155

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

For Native peoples of California, the abalone found along the state’s coast have remarkably complex significance as food, spirit, narrative symbol, tradable commodity, and material with which to make adornment and sacred regalia. The large mollusks also represent contemporary struggles surrounding cultural identity and political sovereignty. Abalone Tales, a collaborative ethnography, presents different perspectives on the multifaceted material and symbolic relationships between abalone and the Ohlone, Pomo, Karuk, Hupa, and Wiyot peoples of California. The research agenda, analyses, and writing strategies were determined through collaborative relationships between the anthropologist Les W. Field and Native individuals and communities. Several of these individuals contributed written texts or oral stories for inclusion in the book. Tales about abalone and their historical and contemporary meanings are related by Field and his coauthors, who include the chair and other members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe; a Point Arena Pomo elder; the chair of the Wiyot tribe and her sister; several Hupa Indians; and a Karuk scholar, artist, and performer. Reflecting the divergent perspectives of various Native groups and people, the stories and analyses belie any presumption of a single, unified indigenous understanding of abalone. At the same time, they shed light on abalone’s role in cultural revitalization, struggles over territory, tribal appeals for federal recognition, and connections among California’s Native groups. While California’s abalone are in danger of extinction, their symbolic power appears to surpass even the environmental crises affecting the state’s vulnerable coastline.

Little Known Tales in California History

Little Known Tales in California History PDF

Author: Alton Pryor

Publisher: Stagecoach Pub

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 0966005317

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book has 41 different chapters on California's gold rush and development history. Read about The Lost Spanish Galleon, Pegleg Smith's Lost Gold Mine, Joaquin Murrieta, and railroad titans.

The Way We Lived

The Way We Lived PDF

Author: Malcolm Margolin

Publisher: Heyday

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A collection of reminiscences, stories, and songs that reflect the diversity of the people native to California.