The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories Audiobook By Mark Twain cover art

The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories

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The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories

By: Mark Twain
Narrated by: Jonathan Kent
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Mark Twain's last novel, The Mysterious Stranger, took 12 years to finish and is unlike anything else he wrote.

This dark story, set in medieval Austria, hinges on unearthly and hidden mental powers. It also gives an insight to the author's psyche during his final days.

The other stories in this edition include "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg", "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", "The Story of the Bad Little Boy", "The Diary of Adam and Eve", "Edward Mills and George Benton", "The Joke That Made Ed's Fortune", and "A Fable".

©1996 Joss Recordings (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc. Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Classics Literary History & Criticism United States World Literature

Editorial reviews

Mark Twain's collection of lesser-known stories spans his career, showing a darker side to this popular personality. Most of these mysterious and melancholic tales focus on the theme of money while revealing a man who spent much of his life questioning societal norms. Jonathan Kent captures the shadowy spirit of these pieces and proves himself comfortable with Twain's vernacular. Though Kent could engage more energetically at times, his gentle and thoughtful voice gives the listener space to absorb Twain's ideas. Overall, this audiobook gives much insight into one of America's greatest minds.
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Dark and enlightening and very thought provoking. Nikola Tesla claimed he inspired this book and I had to take a listen. Fantastic tale, excellent performance.

Arguably Twain’s Best Work

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This book was the book that set my life on a path to be filled with reading. There are different versions of the mysterious stranger and all worth reading. These were all wrote at the end of his life after tragedy had robbed him of his happiness and deep thought as to what has come and how to accept it was in its place

my favorite book

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Great stories, poor sound quality. It is an old recording, and the quality isn't great.

Great stories, poor sound quality

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Although this recording generally features a good selection of stories by Twain, the narration is mostly humdrum. "The Mysterious Stranger," which should be the highlight, unfortunately uses the 1916 version of the story, assembled from three other versions by Twain's literary executor, with significant cuts and additions by said executor. In other words, the version of the story presented here is not a version of the story that Twain himself wrote. Of course if the narration were better it would be possible to overlook that; but it's not.

(In the publishers' defense, it should be noted that the version they recorded is the one most frequently anthologized; and it does have some interesting features of its own. But the narration is just too bland.)

Bad text, humdrum narration

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