If there is one essential book for the Mark Twain and steamboating era enthusiast, this is surely it. I have read my edition several times, and treasure it as 'Twain's prose hyme to the Mississippi'. It is at once entertaining, historically detailed, and filled with a sweet longing for a by-gone age. Filled with reminiscences, yarns and anecdotes, it is joy to read. The original missing chapters of Huckleberry Finn are a delight.
Life on the Mississippi reveals much of the heart of its great writer.
This Signet edition has a cover depicting the spectacular 1853 painting by Hippolyte Sebron titled Giant Steamboats at New Orleans.
From The Mark Twain Library, this complete version compiled by The Mark Twain Project, is the culmination of many years of painstaking work. This is the one to read.
In 1985, The Mark Twain Project combined the second half of the original manuscript (presented by Twain to the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library), with the first half of the book first published America in 1885.
Subsequently, the first half of the original manuscript was found in the attic of the great-granddaughter of James Gluck, the curator of the Buffalo Library, in 1990. We now have the restored, complete manuscript, published as Twain had surely intended before editors, typesetters and proofreaders introduced a variety of errors. Most of these errors are minor misspellings and punctuation, but some, like three revised sections of the novel, are significant changes. Twain scholars will appreciate the meticulous and faithful restoration this volume represents, and all will relish reading the complete story, as Twain so carefully wrote it, for the first time. Huck would like this.
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