How refreshing and what a joy is to read Mark Twain...
This is an enjoyable short collection of three illustrated stories by M.T .
The pencil illustrations were made by Marc Johnson-Pencook support and add to the witty and humorous writing of M.T
This book would be an great gift to the numerous fan of his, or a nice introduction to him.


Thank you NetGalley and ArtWrite Productions for this e-copy

Thank you NetGalley and ArtWrite Productions for accepting my request to read and review Twain Illustrated.

Author: Mark Twain
Adapted by: Jerome Tiller
Illustrated by: Marc Johnson-Pencook

The synopsis tells you what the book is, I'm not repeating that. The three stories are pencil sketched and the stories have been edited for ease of current reading. I didn't compare the writings. If you are looking for straight Twain, this isn't for you. I do think this makes for a nice introduction to Twain, and a nice unique gift for a Twain fan.

An illustrated collection of three short stories by Mark Twain. All three stories have Twain himself as a character. I particularly enjoyed ‘Running for Governor’ and the lengths newspapers go to discredit their preferred candidates opposition.

This collection gathers three pieces of Twain’s short fiction and presents them in an edited and illustrated volume. The stories are edited from the original published editions. My understanding is that the editing was confined to making the volume more readable to a present-day audience (and probably to younger readers, specifically.) As far as I can tell, that’s the case.

The three stories have in common that Twain, himself, features as a character. [This is less explicit for the second story than for the first and third, it being merely written in first person while the others reference Twain by name.] The first story, “Emerson, Holmes, and Longfellow,” is essentially a roast of those three important 19th century American poets. The story is written as though Twain is traveling on walkabout and happens upon a miner’s household where, as luck would have it, the three titular poets had stopped in previously. Supposedly, this was first a speech given in Boston at a celebration for another poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, and it went down like a lead balloon.

The middle story, “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut,” is about a mysterious visitor who comes calling who seems to know about all the narrator’s misdeeds. It turns out that said visitor is the narrator’s conscience. This personification of conscience is a clever plot device and makes for a hilarious story.

The final story is entitled “Running for Governor,” and it shows that fake news is far from a new phenomenon in American politics. It imagines Twain running for governor of New York and the one news story after the next presenting outlandish, contrived claims that begin to stick as Twain ignores them. This reminded me of the Twain essay that disabused me of the popular notion that we are [at any given time] in uniquely contentiously partisan times for American politics.

I enjoyed this collection. I would probably have preferred an unedited text, but it’s readable, engaging, and humorous as is. The illustrations are line-drawn, and many are cartoonishly jocular while others are more realistic caricatures. It’s certainly an entertaining read.

Twain Illustrated contains three stories from Mark Twain, will illustrations added.  The first is Emerson, Holmes, and Longfellow - which is also known as Twain's December 17, 1877 Speech at the Hotel Brunswick in Boston. The second is The Facts Concerning The Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut and finally the third, Running for Governor.  None of these had been something I had read before, so getting to read them as well as have the illustrations worked in to break the text up was a nice treat.

I received a free e-copy of this book from Net Galley in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.