Short Fiction

doi:10.1017/9781108617208.012

Chapter 10 - Short Fiction

from Part II - Literary Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2019

Peter Messent

Edited by

John Bird

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John Bird: Affiliation:
Winthrop University

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Summary

Throughout his career, Mark Twain wrote short fiction, from short comic sketches to longer short stories. His first big national success came in 1865 with “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which he revised several times over the next decade. His short fiction is most often humorous, often satiric, and often burlesques of established genres. But he also tackled serious topics like racism. He published his short fiction in magazines like The Atlantic, then collected most of them in books. In his later years, his short fiction took on a more bitter tone, such as “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” Twain was writing in a period when the short story became fully developed in American writing, and he was part of that trend.

Keywords

Mark Twain Samuel Clemens short fiction sketches Jumping Frog

Type: Chapter
Information: Mark Twain in Context , pp. 100 - 108

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108617208.012 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2020

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References

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