THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY, And other Sketches.
BYMARK TWAIN.
EDITED BY JOHN PAUL.New-York: C. H. WEBB, Publisher, 119 & 121 NASSAU ST. AMERICAN NEWS CO., AGENTS.
1867.ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by C. H. WEBB, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York. JOHN A. GRAY & GREEN, PRINTERS, 16 AND 18 JACOB ST., NEW-YORK.
TO JOHN SMITH,
WHOM I HAVE KNOWN IN DIVERS AND SUNDRY PLACES ABOUT THE WORLD, AND
WHOSE MANY AND MANIFOLD VIRTUES DID ALWAYS COMMAND
MY ESTEEM, I
Dedicate this Book.
It is said that the man to whom a volume is dedicated, always buys a copy. If this prove true in the present instance, a princely affluence is about to burst upon
THE AUTHOR.
ADVERTISEMENT.
"MARK TWAIN" is too well known to the public to require a formal introduction at my hands. By his story of the Frog, he scaled the heights of popularity at a single jump, and won for himself the sobriquet of The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope. He is also known to fame as The Moralist of the Main; and it is not unlikely that as such he will go down to posterity. It is in his secondary character, as humorist, however, rather than in the primal one of moralist, that I aim to present him in the present volume. And here a ready explanation will be found for the somewhat fragmentary character of many of these sketches; for it was necessary to snatch threads of humor wherever they could be found—very often detaching them from serious articles and moral essays with which they were woven and entangled. Originally written for newspaper publication, many of the articles referred to events of the day, the interest of which has now passed away, and contained local allusions, which the general reader would fail to understand; in such cases excision became imperative. Further than this, remark or comment is unnecessary. Mark Twain never resorts to tricks of spelling nor rhetorical buffoonery for the purpose of provoking a laugh; the vein of his humor runs too rich and deep to make surface-gilding necessary. But there are few who can resist the quaint similes, keen satire, and hard good sense which form the staple of his writings.
J. P.
CONTENTS.
- The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, 7
- Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man, 20
- A Complaint about Correspondents, dated in San Francisco, 26
- Answers to Correspondents, 34
- Among the Fenians, 58
- The Story of the Bad Little Boy who Didn't Come to Grief, 60
- Curing a Cold, 67
- An Inquiry about Insurances, 76
- Literature in the Dry Diggings, 82
- "After" Jenkins, 85
- Lucretia Smith's Soldier, 89
- The Killing of Julius Cæsar "Localized," 99
- An Item which the Editor Himself could not Understand, 110
- Among the Spirits, 116
- Brief Biographical Sketch of George Washington, 127
- A Touching Story of George Washington's Boyhood, 132
- A Page from a Californian Almanac, 141
- Information for the Million, 144
- The Launch of the Steamer Capital, 153
- Origin of Illustrious Men, 162
- Advice for Good Little Girls, 164
- Concerning Chambermaids, 167
- Remarkable Instances of Presence of Mind, 172
- Honored as a Curiosity in Honolulu, 176
- The Steed "Oahu," 179
- A Strange Dream, 182
- Short and Singular Rations, 194