Click "free sample" to read the whole book. No need to purchase. The author of outstanding travel books, autobiographical works and novels, including the classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910) is regarded by many as America's finest humorist and a major writer of short stories. The four selections in this volume span his entire writing career and are among his best-known stories. They include: "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," one of Twain's most amusing pieces of folk humor, first published in 1865; "The £1,000,000 Bank Note," a lighthearted exploration of the power of money; "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," a masterfully written short story about greed; and his last work, "The Mysterious Stranger," a novelette published posthumously in 1916, presenting Twain's rather grim views of God, man, and the universe.