The Mysterious Stranger
by Mark Twain
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- written 1897-1908, published 1916
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- English
- Length
- Short · 150 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendThe Mysterious Stranger ManuscriptsUniversity of California Press, 2005Prints all three of Twain's unfinished versions; the 1916 text edited by Paine is a patchwork and is not what Twain wrote.
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In an Austrian village in 1590 three boys meet a beautiful youth who calls himself Satan, nephew of the fallen angel, and can create and destroy living creatures at will. He shows them the wretchedness of human life, the cruelty of the moral sense, and the meaninglessness of any human choice, and ends by declaring that nothing exists but a vagrant thought. Twain worked on the story in three manuscripts over the last decade of his life and finished none; the book published in 1916 was assembled and altered by his literary executor.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns The Mysterious Stranger are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
