£1,000,000 Bank-Note & other new Stories
£1,000,000 Bank-Note & other new Stories
In 1893, as America plunged into economic crisis and Mark Twain faced personal devastation, he published this collection of nine stories that pulse with unexpected hope. The centerpiece, "The £1,000,000 Bank-Note," follows a penniless sailor handed a massive banknote as an experiment in gentility. What unfolds is pure Twain: a razor-sharp satire on money, class, and the absurd theater of wealth, where a single note becomes both obstacle and opportunity. The surrounding stories range from comic vignettes about telegraphing thoughts to adventurous tales of corsairs and couriers, from satirical petriotions to loving spoofs of literary pomposity. These are not the bitter, hollow men of Twain's later work. This is Twain still believing in the joke, still confident that wit can tame even the wildest absurdity. For readers who want to see America's greatest humorist at a crossroads, balancing joy against the encroaching dark.
X-Ray
