Grammardog Guide to The Prince and the Pauper


Book Description

Grammardog Teacher's Guide contains 16 quizzes for this novel. All sentences are from the novel. Figurative language includes: "the forest of legs," "Hunger is pride's master," "busy as ants," "He felt much as a man might who had danced blithely out to enjoy a rainbow and got struck by lightning." Alliteration includes: "The high hedge hid him," "He bathed his bleeding feet in the brook," "After hours of persistent pursuit and persecution, the little prince was at last deserted . . ."




Grammardog Guide to Hard Times


Book Description

Grammardog Teacher's Guide contains 16 quizzes for this novel. All sentences are from the novel. Figurative language includes "the midnight of his mind," "grinding at the mill of knowledge," and "like a sad sea." Allusions pertain to mythology (Centaur, Cupid, Venus, Furies), religion (Adam, Good Samaritan, serpent in the garden, Judas Iscariot), folklore (fairies, genies, dragon) and literature (Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Robinson Crusoe, "Alas poor Yorick!").




Grammardog Guide to A Tale of Two Cities


Book Description

Grammardog Teacher's Guide contains 16 quizzes for this novel. All sentences are from the novel. Figurative language includes: "Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys" "They kept him in a dark place like a cheese until he had the full Tellson flavor and blue mould upon him" "What the two drank together . . . might have floated a king's ship" "The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature . . ." ". . . and heard the night break its silence with a long sigh . . ."







Satire Or Evasion?


Book Description

Ranging from the laudatory to the openly hostile, 15 essays by prominent African American scholars and critics examine the novel's racist elements and assess the degree to which Twain's ironies succeed or fail to turn those elements into a satirical attack on racism. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




The Jim Dilemma


Book Description

Discusses how Mark Twain's novel "Huckleberry Finn" can help students learn more about slavery, racism, and freedom.




Mark Twain


Book Description




Mark Twain and Human Nature


Book Description

Mark Twain once claimed that he could read human character as well as he could read the Mississippi River, and he studied his fellow humans with the same devoted attention. In both his fiction and his nonfiction, he was disposed to dramatize how the human creature acts in a given environment—and to understand why. Now one of America’s preeminent Twain scholars takes a closer look at this icon’s abiding interest in his fellow creatures. In seeking to account for how Twain might have reasonably believed the things he said he believed, Tom Quirk has interwoven the author’s inner life with his writings to produce a meditation on how Twain’s understanding of human nature evolved and deepened, and to show that this was one of the central preoccupations of his life. Quirk charts the ways in which this humorist and occasional philosopher contemplated the subject of human nature from early adulthood until the end of his life, revealing how his outlook changed over the years. His travels, his readings in history and science, his political and social commitments, and his own pragmatic testing of human nature in his writing contributed to Twain’s mature view of his kind. Quirk establishes the social and scientific contexts that clarify Twain’s thinking, and he considers not only Twain’s stated intentions about his purposes in his published works but also his ad hoc remarks about the human condition. Viewing both major and minor works through the lens of Twain’s shifting attitude, Quirk provides refreshing new perspectives on the master’s oeuvre. He offers a detailed look at the travel writings, including The Innocents Abroad and Following the Equator, and the novels, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Pudd’nhead Wilson, as well as an important review of works from Twain’s last decade, including fantasies centering on man’s insignificance in Creation, works preoccupied with isolation—notably No. 44,The Mysterious Stranger and “Eve’s Diary”—and polemical writings such as What Is Man? Comprising the well-seasoned reflections of a mature scholar, this persuasive and eminently readable study comes to terms with the life-shaping ideas and attitudes of one of America’s best-loved writers. Mark Twain and Human Nature offers readers a better understanding of Twain’s intellect as it enriches our understanding of his craft and his ineluctable humor.




Adventures of Huckleberry Finn


Book Description

Like its popular predecessor, this critical edition is designed for "teaching the conflicts" surrounding Mark Twain7;s classic novel. It reprints the 1885 text of the first American edition (with a portfolio of illustrations) along with critical essays representing major critical and cultural controversies surrounding the work. The novel and essays are supported by distinctive editorial material 2; including introductions to critical conflict in literary studies, to Twain7;s life and work, and to each critical controversy highlighted in this edition 2; that helps students grapple not only with the novel7;s critical issues but also with cultural debates about literature itself. In addition to several new critical essays, the second edition includes an appendix on how to argue about the novel so that students may more effectively enter the critical conversation about its issues.