Book Description

The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain The Mysterious Stranger is the final novel attempted by the American author Mark Twain. He worked on it periodically from 1897 through 1908. The body of work is a serious social commentary by Twain addressing his ideas of the Moral Sense and the "damned human race." Twain wrote multiple versions of the story; each is unfinished and involves the character of "Satan." "St. Petersburg Fragment" Twain wrote the "St. Petersburg Fragment" in September 1897. It was set in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, a name Twain often used for Hannibal, Missouri. The Chronicle of Young Satan The first substantial version is commonly referred to as The Chronicle of Young Satan and relates the adventures of Satan, the sinless nephew of the biblical Satan, in Eseldorf, an Austrian village in the Middle Ages (year 1702). The story ends abruptly in the middle of a scene involving Satan' entertaining a prince in India. Twain wrote this version between November 1897 and September 1900. "Eseldorf" is German for "assville" or "donkeytown." Schoolhouse Hill The second substantial version Twain attempted to write is known as Schoolhouse Hill. It is set in the US and involves the familiar characters Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and their adventures with Satan, referred to in this version as "No. 44, New Series 864962." Schoolhouse Hill is the shortest of the three versions. Twain began writing it in November 1898 and, like the "St. Petersburg Fragment," set it in the fictional town of St. Petersburg.