The Jumping Frog and Other Stories

Mark Twain

Jul 2008 · Pushkin Press

About this ebook

A much celebrated jumping frog, the lack of literature in a gold-mining town, and castaways who eat their own shoes to survive are among the subjects treated by the stories contained in this volume. The Jumping Frog and Other Sketches captures the light and humorous spirit of Mark Twain’s early work, inspired by his experiences in the mining districts of California and Nevada. These sketches became widely known in America, India, China and England and launched the solid foundation of the author's fame.

About the author

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was born in 1835 in Florida, and grew up in Hannibal, Mississippi. He was the sixth of seven children whose father, a country merchant, died when he was 11 years old. The year following his father's death, Twain started working as a printer's apprentice, then as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the local newspaper, then as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. Aged 22 he began a career as a steamboat pilot until the Civil War broke out in 1861 during which time he travelled across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. These travels provided the material for The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, his first important work, first published in the New York Saturday Press in 1865.