Mark Twain On The Damned Human Race

Plot

A collection of Mark Twain's topical writings, most of it in the early years of the twentieth century, and mainly, and most eloquently, concerned with the themes of social justice, of American civilization in its dawning age of imperialism (Europe had showed the way), and of the sinful nature of man in general. Some of these pieces aroused waves of indignant protest when they were published. (They are not innocent, happy, "cheerful" specimens of frontier humor.) Some were never published at the time for the same reason, the fear of further indignation at, or the possible public ostracism of America's most beloved writer. As a social historian and critic of American literature, I should add that it gives me great pleasure to see these angry, savage, outrageous essays of Mark Twain finally collected in one volume.--From pref. by Maxwell Geismar.