Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in ConnecticutFenimore Cooper's Literary Offences Mark Twain Carnival of Crime in CT. I was feeling blithe, almost jocund. I put a match to my cigar, and just then the morning's mail was handed in. The first superscription I glanced at was in a handwriting that sent a thrill of pleasure through and through me. It was Aunt Mary's; and she was the person I loved and honored most in all the world, outside of my own household. She had been my boyhood's idol; maturity, which is fatal to so many enchantments, had not been able to dislodge her from her pedestal; no, it had only justified her right to be there, and placed her dethronement permanently among the impossibilities. To show how strong her influence over me was, I will observe that long after everybody else's "do-stop-smoking" had ceased to affect me in the slightest degree, Aunt Mary could still stir my torpid conscience into faint signs of life when she touched upon the matter. But all things have their limit in this world. A happy day came at last, when even Aunt Mary's words could no longer move me. I was not merely glad to see that day arrive; I was more than glad--I was grateful; for when its sun had set, the one alloy that was able to mar my enjoyment of my aunt's society was gone. The remainder of her stay with us that winter was in every way a delight. Of course she pleaded with me just as earnestly as ever, after that blessed day, to quit my pernicious habit, but to no purpose whatever; the moment she opened the subject I at once became calmly, peacefully, contentedly indifferent--absolutely, adamantinely indifferent. Consequently the closing weeks of that memorable visit melted away as pleasantly as a dream, they were so freighted for me with tranquil satisfaction. I could not have enjoyed my pet vice more if my gentle tormentor had been a smoker herself, and an advocate of the practice. Well, the sight of her handwriting reminded me that I way getting very hungry to see her again. I easily guessed what I should find in her letter. I opened it. Good! just as I expected; she was coming! Coming this very day, too, and by the morning train; I might expect her any moment. I said to myself, "I am thoroughly happy and content now. If my most pitiless enemy could appear before me at this moment, I would freely right any wrong I may have done him." Straightway the door opened, and a shriveled, shabby dwarf entered. He was not more than two feet high. He seemed to be about forty years old. Every feature and every inch of him was a trifle out of shape; and so, while one could not put his finger upon any particular part and say, "This is a conspicuous deformity," the spectator perceived that this little person was a deformity as a whole--a vague, general, evenly blended, nicely adjusted deformity. There was a fox-like cunning in the face and the sharp little eyes, and also alertness and malice. And yet, this vile bit of human rubbish seemed to bear a sort of remote and ill-defined resemblance to me! It was dully perceptible in the mean form, the countenance, and even the clothes, gestures, manner, and attitudes of the creature. He was a farfetched, dim suggestion of a burlesque upon me, a caricature of me in little. One thing about him struck me forcibly and most unpleasantly: he was covered all over with a fuzzy, greenish mold, such as one sometimes sees upon mildewed bread. The sight of it was nauseating. He stepped along with a chipper air, and flung himself into a doll's chair in a very free-and-easy way, without waiting to be asked. He tossed his hat into the waste-basket. He picked up my old chalk pipe from the floor, gave the stem a wipe or two on his knee, filled the bowl from the tobacco-box at his side, and said to me in a tone of pert command: I blushed to the roots of my hair; partly with indignation, but mainly because it somehow seemed to me that this whole performance was very like an exaggeration of conduct which I myself had sometimes been guilty of in my intercourse with familiar friends--but never, never with strangers, I observed to myself. Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses. " Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses " is an 1895 essay by Mark Twain, written as a satire and criticism of the writings of James Fenimore Cooper. [1] It draws on examples from The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder from Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. Contents. Summary Reception Continuation References External links. The essay is characteristic of Twain's biting, derisive and highly satirical style of literary criticism, a form he also used to deride such authors as Oliver Goldsmith, George Eliot, Jane Austen, and Robert Louis Stevenson. [2] Summary. Twain begins by quoting a few critics who praise the works of Cooper: Brander Matthews, Thomas Lounsbury and Wilkie Collins. He then claims that they have never read the novels themselves, and that Cooper's work is seriously flawed: In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. [3] He goes on to list 18 separate literary rules he feels that Cooper does not follow, such as "The tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the "Deerslayer" accomplishes nothing and arrives in the air," and "The author shall use the right word, not its second cousin." Twain continues on with few positive things to say about Cooper's writing, citing several examples from Cooper's writing to illustrate the unbelievable excess of the style. [3] Reception. Twain's essay has been criticized by proponents of Cooper as unfair and distorted. [4] Cooper scholars Lance Schachterle and Kent Ljungquist write, "Twain's deliberate misreading of Cooper has been devastating. Twain valued economy of style (a possible but not necessary criterion), but such concision simply was not a characteristic of many early nineteenth-century novelists' work." [5] Hilarious though Twain's essay is, it is valid only within its own narrow and sometimes misapplied criteria. Whether Twain is attacking Cooper's diction or Hawkeye's tracking feats, his strategy is to charge Cooper with one small inaccuracy, reconstruct the surrounding narrative or sentence around it, and then produce the whole as evidence that Cooper's kind of English would prevent anyone from seeing reality. [1] Twain critic Sydney Krause, while agreeing that the "sulfurous grumblings over Cooper [are] hardly the work of a judicious person," sees Twain's satire as an attack on Romanticism in general and a formal announcement that Romantic literature "was a literary dead letter in post-Civil War America." [1] Joseph Andriano, writing in The Mark Twain Encyclopedia , says that Twain has "Imposed the standards of Realism on Romance" and that this incongruity is a major source of the humor in the essay. [6] Everett Emerson (in Mark Twain: A Literary Life ) says the essay is "possibly the author's funniest". [7] Continuation. A second essay, continuing and completing the original essay, was published after Twain's death under the title "Fenimore Cooper's Further Literary Offenses" in The New England Quarterly (vol XIX, pp. 291–30, September 1946) as edited by Bernard DeVoto. [6] It was reprinted under the title "Cooper's Prose Style" in the collection Letters from the Earth (on pp 139–150 of the 2004 Harper edition). [8] This essay includes the passage which explains the "114 out of a possible 115" mentioned in the original essay. It is discussed in the "Editor's Notes" in the Letters from the Earth collection. [9] Everett H. Emerson says that the sequel is "less funny but still amusing." [7] Related Research Articles. Samuel Langhorne Clemens , known by his pen name Mark Twain , was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the latter often called "The Great American Novel". James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances depicting frontier and Native American life from the 17th to the 19th centuries created a unique form of American literature. He lived much of his boyhood and the last fifteen years of life in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William Cooper on property that he owned. Cooper became a member of the Episcopal Church shortly before his death and contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society. William Dean Howells was an American realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of The Atlantic Monthly , as well as for his own prolific writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novels The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Traveler from Altruria . The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is a historical novel written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826. An Essay on Criticism is one of the first major poems written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688–1744), published in 1711. It is the source of the famous quotations "To err is human, to forgive divine", "A little learning is a dang'rous thing", and "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". The Simple Art of Murder is the title of several quasi-connected publications by hard-boiled detective fiction author Raymond Chandler: Bernard Augustine DeVoto (1897–1955), American historian, essayist, columnist, teacher, editor, and reviewer, was a lifelong champion of American Public lands and the conservation of public resources as well as an outspoken defender of civil liberties. He was the author of a series of Pulitzer-Prize-winning popular histories of the American West and for many years wrote The Easy Chair , an influential column in Harper's Magazine. DeVoto also wrote several well-regarded novels and during the 1950s served as a speech-writer for Adlai Stevenson. His friend and biographer, Wallace Stegner described Devoto as "flawed, brilliant, provocative, outrageous, . often wrong, often spectacularly right, always stimulating, sometimes infuriating, and never, never dull." The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, set in the eighteenth century era of development in the primarily former Iroquois areas in central New York. Each novel features Natty Bumppo, a frontiersman known to European-American settlers as "Leatherstocking", "The Pathfinder", and "the trapper". Native Americans call him "Deerslayer", " La Longue Carabine ", and "Hawkeye". Chingachgook is a fictional character in four of James Fenimore Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales , including his 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans . Chingachgook was a lone Mohican chief and companion of the series' hero, Natty Bumppo. In The Deerslayer , Chingachgook married Wah-ta-Wah, who bore him a son named Uncas, but died while she was still young. Uncas, who was at his birth "last of the Mohicans", grew to manhood but was killed in a battle with the Huron warrior Magua. Chingachgook died as an old man in the novel The Pioneers , which makes him the actual "last of the Mohicans," having outlived his son. The history of literature in the Modern period in Europe begins with the Age of Enlightenment and the conclusion of the Baroque period in the 18th century, succeeding the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. Van Wyck Brooks was an American literary critic, biographer, and historian. James Brander Matthews was an American writer and educator. He was the first full-time professor of dramatic literature at an American university and played a significant role in establishing theater as a subject worthy of formal study in the academic world. His interests ranged from Shakespeare, Molière, and Ibsen to French boulevard comedies, folk theater, and the new realism of his own day. Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury was an American literary historian and critic, born in Ovid, New York, January 1, 1838. He graduated from Yale College in 1859 and subsequently received honorary degrees from Yale, Harvard, Lafayette, Princeton, and Aberdeen. He enlisted in the 126th New York Volunteers in 1862 and served in the Civil War as a first lieutenant. The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path (1841) was James Fenimore Cooper's last novel in his Leatherstocking Tales . Its 1740-1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo. The novel's setting on Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York, is the same as that of The Pioneers , the first of the Leatherstocking Tales to be published (1823). The Deerslayer is considered to be the prequel to the rest of the series. Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his five Leatherstocking Tales . " To the Person Sitting in Darkness " is an essay by American author Mark Twain published in the North American Review in February 1901. It is a satire exposing imperialism as revealed in the Boxer Uprising and its aftermath, the Boer War, and the Philippine–American War expressing his anti-Imperialist views. It mentions the historical figures Emilio Aguinaldo, William McKinley, Joseph Chamberlain, William Scott Ament and others, and fueled the Twain–Ament indemnities controversy. American literary regionalism or local color is a style or genre of writing in the United States that gained popularity in the mid to late 19th century into the early 20th century. In this style of writing, which includes both poetry and prose, the setting is particularly important and writers often emphasize specific features such as dialect, customs, history, and landscape, of a particular region: "Such a locale is likely to be rural and/or provincial." Regionalism is influenced by both 19th-century realism and romanticism, adhering to a fidelity of description in the narrative but also infusing the tale with exotic or unfamiliar customs, objects, and people. Nathaniel " Natty " Bumppo is a fictional character and the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales . The Californian was a San Francisco literary newspaper published weekly from May 28, 1864 until February 1, 1868. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, well known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called "the Great American Novel," and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). He also wrote poetry, short stories, essays, and non-fiction. The Two Admirals is an 1842 nautical fiction novel by James Fenimore Cooper. The novel was written after the Leatherstocking Tales novel The Deerslayer . Set during the 18th century and exploring the British Royal Navy, Cooper wrote the novel out of encouragement of his English publisher, who recommended writing another sea novel. Cooper had originally intended to write a novel where ships were the main characters, though eventually decided not to. The novels is one of three novels which Cooper would revise for editions following their first printing, the other two being The Pathfinder and Deerslayer . Works By Mark Twain. Mark Twain's literary works cover the writing of novels, essays, letters, speeches, plays, poems and short stories. The first work by Mark Twain that made him a recognizable name in literature was Innocents Abroad, published in 1869. The book was not well received, a fact that discouraged him from pursuing the literary career that he really wanted. During the ensuing years, Twain wrote for various publications and went on lecture tours around the world. He married, fathered a son and quickly amassed heavy debt. But, Innocents Abroad caught on, selling over 67,000 copies in one year, which prompted the American Publishing Company to commission another of Mark Twain's works. Thus followed Roughing It, published in 1872; it was another travel book based mostly on his own experiences with the post-Gold Rush mining activity. This work, though, was not as successful as Innocents Abroad, and Twain fell deeper into debt. After touring Europe on a lecture junket, Twain's life turned around. His newest work, The Gilded Age, which he collaborated upon with Charles Dudley Warner, was published in 1873, and marked him as a true author. Twain would no longer be considered just a journalist. Following the success of this book, Twain's literary works appeared regularly. The life and works of Mark Twain covered seventy-four years of time, and afterward with the publication of his own autobiography published one-hundred years after his death in 1910. In 2010, Volume One of his three- part personal account of his life went on sale to honor his wish that it would never be published before that date. A complete list of Marks Twain's works follows: Novels/Fiction. The Gilded Age 1601 humorous work Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The American Claimant, The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, A A novel Gilded Age, The A novel written by Charles Dudley Warner and Mark Twain Horse's Tale, A A short novel Innocents Abroad, The A novel Mysterious Stranger, The A novella Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc A historical novel Prince and The Pauper, The A novel Roughing It Some Rambling Notes Of An Idle Excursion Those Extraordinary Twins A novel/comedy Tom Sawyer Abroad A novel Tom Sawyer, Detective Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, The A novel, satire Tramp Abroad, A novel (traveling) Non-Fiction. Chapters from My Autobiography Christian Science Curious Republic Of Gondour And Other Whimsical Sketches Following the Equator Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again Letters of Mark Twain (complete), The Life on the Mississippi. Plays. Encounter With An Interviewer, An one-act short play. Poems. Those Annual Bills. Essays. As Concerns Interpreting At the Shrine of St. Wagner Bee, The Concerning Tobacco Death of Jean, The Essays on Paul Bourget Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences How to Make History Dates Stick In Defense of Harriet Shelley Is Shakespeare Dead? Memorable Assassination, The On the Decay of the Art of Lying Scrap of Curious History, A Simplified Alphabet, A Taming the Bicycle Turning-Point of My Life, The What Is Man? William Dean Howells. Short Stories. "After" Jenkins "Party Cries" In Ireland $30,000 Bequest, The About Barbers About Magnanimous-Incident Literature About Play-Acting Advice to Little Girls After-Dinner Speech Amended Obituaries Answers To Correspondents At The Appetite-Cure Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man Boons of Life Burlesque Biography, A Californian's Tale, The Cannibalism In The Cars Canvasser's Tale, The Capitoline Venus, The Captain Stormfield Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven Captain's Story, The Carnival of Crime in Connecticut, The A humorous American short story Case Of George Fisher, The Christian Science and the book of Mrs. Eddy Concerning Chambermaids Concerning The American Language Concerning The Jews Cure for the Blues, A Curing A Cold Curious Dream, The Curious Pleasure Excursion, A Danger of Lying in Bed, The Diplomatic Pay and clothes Disgraceful Persecution Of A Boy Does the Race of Man Love a Lord? Dog's Tale, A Double Barrelled Detective Story Edward Mills and George Benton: A Tale, by Mark Twain. Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant, The English as She is Taught Entertaining Article, An Esquimaux Maiden's Romance, The Eve's Diary Fable, A Facts Concerning The Recent Resignation, The Facts In The Case Of The Great Beef Contract, The Fashion Item, A Fine Old Man, A First Interview With Artemus Ward First Writing-machines, The From The 'London Times' of 1904 General Washington's Negro Body-Servant Ghost Story, A Great Revolution In Pitcairn, The Helpless Situation, A History Repeats Itself Honored As A Curiosity How I Edited An Agricultural Paper, The How The Author Was Sold In Newark How To Tell A Story Humane Word from Satan, A Hunting The Deceitful Turkey In Memoriam - Olivia Susan Clemens Information Wanted Introduction to "The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English" Is He living or is He dead? Italian with Grammar Italian without a Master John Chinaman In New York Johnny Greer Journalism In Tennessee Judge's "Spirited Woman", The Jumping Frog, The Killing of Julius Caesar "Localized", The Late Benjamin Franklin, The Legend Of Sagenfeld, In Germany Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, A Lionizing Murderers Loves Of Alonzo Fitz Clarence And Rosannah Ethelton, The Luck The McWilliamses And The Burglar Alarm, The Medieval Romance, A Monument to Adam Experience Of The McWilliamses With Membranous Croup Extracts from Adam's Diary Mr. Bloke's Item My Bloody Massacre My Boyhood Dreams My Debut as a Literary Person My First Lie, and how My First Literary Venture My Late Senatorial Secretaryship My Watch Mysterious Visit, A New Crime, A Niagara Office Bore, The Paris Notes Petition Concerning Copyright Petrified Man, The Political Economy Portrait of King William III Post-mortem Poetry Punch, Brothers, Punch Riley-Newspaper Correspondent Rogers Running For Governor Science vs Luck, The Scriptural Panoramist, The Siamese Twins, The Some Learned Fables, For Good Old Boys And Girls Speech At The Scottish Banquet In London Speech On Accident Insurance Speech On The Babies Speech On The Weather Stolen White Elephant, The Story Of The Bad Little Boy, The Story Of The Good Little Boy Switzerland, the Cradle of Liberty Telephonic Conversation, A To Raise Poultry To the Above Old People Travelling with a Reformer True Story, The Undertaker's Chat, The Was It Heaven? Or Hell? Widow's Protest, The Wit Inspirations Of The "Two-Year-Olds" mark twain works works of mark twain mark twain s works the complete works of mark twain mark twain life and works complete works of mark twain mark twains works mark twain work life and work of mark twain. Related Articles. Mark Twain, a Venturio Media Web Property Copyright © 2014 Venturio Media, LLP. A Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury. THE HON. THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, WASHINGTON, D. C.: Sir,--Prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having reached an altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in straitened circumstances, I desire to place with you the following order: Forty-five tons best old dry government bonds, suitable for furnace, gold 7 per cents., 1864, preferred. Twelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable for cooking. Eight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 cent postal currency, vintage of 1866, eligible for kindlings. Please deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in Riverdale at lowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to. The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime. All You Can Books gives you UNLIMITED access to over 40,000 Audiobooks, eBooks, and Foreign Language courses. Download as many audiobooks, ebooks, language audio courses, and language e-workbooks as you want during the FREE trial and it's all yours to keep even if you cancel during the FREE trial. The service works on any major device including computers, smartphones, music players, e-readers, and tablets. You can try the service for FREE for 30 days then it's just USD $19.99 (approximately R1199.60) per month after that. So for the price everyone else charges for just 1 book, we offer you UNLIMITED audio books, e-books and language courses to download and enjoy as you please. No restrictions. "You turned a tramp away from your door this morning." I said crustily: "Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn't. How do you know?" "Well, I know. It isn't any matter how I know." "Very well. Suppose I did turn a tramp away from the door—what of it?" "Oh, nothing; nothing in particular. Only you lied to him." "I didn't! That is, I—" "Yes, but you did; you lied to him." I felt a guilty pang—in truth, I had felt it forty times before that tramp had traveled a block from my door—but still I resolved to make a show of feeling slandered; so I said: "This is a baseless impertinence. I said to the tramp—" "There—wait. You were about to lie again. I know what you said to him. . . . Read More.