The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories, with eBook

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Jonathan Kent

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.

Arguably Twain’s Best Work

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.

my favorite book

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

Great stories, poor sound quality

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

Bad text, humdrum narration

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.)