The Complete Essays of Mark Twain

Two Mark Twain Editorials -- Disgraceful persecution of a boy -- License of the press -- The Sandwich Islands -- A memorable midnight experience -- English as she is taught -- Aix, the paradise of the rheumatics -- At the shrine of St. Wagner -- Mental telegraphy -- The German Chicago -- Marienbad, a health factory -- Switzerland, the cradle of liberty -- In defense of Harriet Shelley -- How to tell a story -- Mental telegraphy again -- What Paul Bourget thinks of us -- A little note to M. Paul Bourget -- Queen Victoria's jubilee --- About play-acting -- Stirring times in Austria -- Concerning the Jews -- Diplomatic pay and clothes -- My debut as a literary person -- To the person sitting in darkness -- To my missionary critics -- Thomas Brackett Reed -- Saint Joan of Arc -- The first writing-machines -- A helpless situation -- A humane word from Satan -- A monument to Adam -- What is man?-- William Dean Howells -- Is Shakespeare dead? -- Marjorie Fleming, the wonder child -- The new planet -- The old-fashioned printer -- Seventieth birthday -- Taxes and Morals -- The turning-point of my life -- The death of Jean -- How to make history dates stick -- A scrap of curious history -- As concerns interpreting the deity -- The bee -- Concerning tobacco -- The memorable assassination -- A simplified alphabet -- Taming the bicycle -- Adam's soliloquy -- Advice to youth -- As regards Patriotism -- Bible teaching and religious practice -- The Cholera epidemic in Hamburg -- Consistency -- Corn-prone opinions -- The dervish and the offensive stranger -- Dr. Loeb's incredible discovery -- Down the Rhone -- Dueling -- Eve speaks -- The finished book -- Foreign critics -- Instructing the soldier -- Letters to Satan -- The lost Napolean -- On speech-making reform -- Samuel Erasmus Moffett -- Skeleton plan of a proposed casting vote party -- Sold to Satan -- Some national stupidities -- The temperance crusade and woman's rights -- That day in Eden -- The United States of Lyncherdom -- The war prayer -- A word of encouragement for our blushing exiles -- Letter from the recording angel

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.