Telling Twain

The Killing of Julius Caesar was first published in a compilation of stories, and is Twain's little exercise in imagining what it would be like to be a reporter in ancient Rome, writing about Caesar's murder. Not wholly successful, so I have tried to modify it to make it less complicated (and hopefully more interesting) at the expense of some of the historical accuracy of the account.

Twain claimed that the original version of this story was his satiric counterpoint to The Gates Ajar, by Elizabeth Stuart Ward. It pokes fun at the absurd contradictions we carry about the nature of what Heaven is like. This adaptation is based on the revised version that was published in 1909.

This story is my adaptation of Twain's story entitled Two Little Tales. The original is a story within a story, but it seems to me that the "outer" story that wraps around the other one actually distracts from the message of the inner story, so I got rid of it, leaving me with One Little Tale. I also added a fairy tale ending, because I felt that's what it needed, even at the risk of being pilloried by Twain purists.

This story is pure Twain, full of sardonic humor and dry wit. It is a telling statement of the nature of political campaigns, and manages to be a refreshing reminder that the squabbling we experience today have long been a part of politics in America.

This is a minor adaptation of a dark and pessimistic story by Twain. It was written during a time when his wife, Libby, was dying and he was beginning to think about writing his autobiography. The story almost seems like a short autobiography itself, at a dark and hopeless time in Twain's life.

This is one of the more complex episodes in the series. Twain's original was written in multiple parts, and the connection between them is not always consistent, so it took a fair amount of adaptation. On the others hand, it was great fun to put it all together with voices and sound effects!

In trying to write an essay on political economy, Twain is interrupted repeatedly by a lightning rod salesman. In trying to dispatch the interruption quickly without looking foolish, Twain just makes things worse . . . . and worse . . . . and worse . . . .

A Ghost Story was first published in an 1875 volume entitled Sketches New and Old. The inspiration for the story has been called "The greatest hoax every perpetuated on the American people". This episode contains both Twain's story and the true story that inspired it.

An excerpt from A Tramp Abroad that was published to promote that book in the Cincinnati Daily Star

An 1860's courtroom drama. Absurd as it sounds, it may have actually happened!