The Stolen White Elephant and Other Detective Stories

Mark Twain

Oxford University Press, 1996 - Detective and mystery stories, American - 714 pages

Three detective stories by Mark Twain with an introduction by Walter Mosely, the modern master of mystery writing, and an afterword by noted scholar Lillian S. Robinson. "The Stolen White Elephant" is a broad farce mocking the self-proclaimed omniscience of many fictional detectives, toldentirely in the form of a series of ridiculous telegraphs. Revolving around the theft of a literal white elephant, the gift of the King of Siam, this manifestly absurd story is nevertheless modeled after the real life efforts of a blundering New York Police Department to recover the corpse of oneAlexander T. Stewart, stolen from his family vault in 1878. "A Double-Barreled Detective Story" is another delightful spoof of the mystery genre, then in its infancy, this time introducing the reader to Sherlock Holmes as he has never been seen before or since. Far from his usual elegant Londonhaunts, the great detective is caught up in a melodramatic murder mystery of love, betrayal, and vengeance in a rough California mining town. Finally, in "Tom Sawyer, Detective," Twain gives us a lively adventure featuring Tom Sawyer as the great detective and Huck Finn as his Watson, investigatingdiamond thefts and murders back in Hannibal. Three delightful stories, all with Twain's trademark wit and sense of fun.

Contents

• THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT: 7
• SOME RAMBLING NOTES OF AN IDLE EXCURSION: 36
• THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT CARNIVAL: 106

About the author

Mark Twain was born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He worked as a printer for a time, and then became a steamboat pilot. He traveled in the West, writing humorous sketches for newspapers. In 1865, he wrote the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which was very well received. He then began a career as a humorous travel writer and lecturer, publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869, Roughing It in 1872, and, co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner, Gilded Age in 1873. His best-known works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Mississippi Writing: Life on the Mississippi (1883), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Stolen White Elephant and Other Detective Stories; Volume 18 of The Oxford Mark Twain; The Stolen White Elephant, and Other Detective Stories, Mark Twain, ISBN 0195113454, 9780195113457; Volume 18 of Works, Mark Twain
• Author: Mark Twain
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996
• Original from: the University of California
• Digitized: Dec 1, 2017
• ISBN: 0195101537, 9780195101539
• Length: 714 pages