Letters from the Earth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Letters from the Earth is one of Mark Twain's posthumously published works. The essays were written during a difficult time in Twain's life; he was deep in debt and had lost both his wife and one of his daughters.[1] Initially, his daughter, Clara Clemens, objected to its publication in March 1939,[1] probably because of its controversial and iconoclastic views on religion, claiming it presented a "distorted"[2] view of her father. Henry Nash Smith helped change her position in 1960.[2] Clara explained her change of heart in 1962 saying that "Mark Twain belonged to the world." and that public opinion had become more tolerant.[1][3] She was also influenced to release the papers due to her annoyance with Soviet propaganda charges that her father's ideas were being suppressed in the United States.[1] The papers were edited in 1939 by Bernard DeVoto.[1] The book consists of a series of short stories, many of which deal with God and Christianity. The title story consists of letters written by the archangel Satan to archangels, Gabriel and Michael,[1] about his observations on the curious proceedings of earthly life and the nature of man's religions. Other short stories in the book include a bedtime story about a family of cats Twain wrote for his daughters, and an essay explaining why an anaconda is morally superior to Man.

[edit] Quotes

“ The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before him rose the black night of Space, like a wall. His mighty bulk towered rugged and mountain-like into the zenith, and His divine head blazed there like a distant sun. At His feet stood three colossal figures, diminished to extinction, almost, by contrast -- archangels -- their heads level with His ankle-bone. ”
“ Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. ”

"Look at them!"

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
This article related to a book about religion is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v • d • e
Works by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Novels:
Short stories:

"General Washington's Negro Body-Servant" • "My Late Senatorial Secretaryship" • "Advice to Little Girls" • "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" • "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" • "The War Prayer" • "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" • "A Literary Nightmare" • "Luck" • "The Stolen White Elephant"
Short story collections:

Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance • Sketches New and Old • A True Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime • Punch, Brothers, Punch! and other Sketches • Merry Tales • The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories • The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Letters from the Earth
Plays:
Essays:
Non fiction:

The Innocents Abroad • Memoranda (monthly column) • Roughing It • Old Times on the Mississippi • A Tramp Abroad • Life on the Mississippi • Following the Equator • What Is Man? • Is Shakespeare Dead? • Queen Victoria's Jubilee • Mark Twain's Autobiography • Mark Twain's Notebook • King Leopold's Soliloquy • The Private History of a Campaign That Failed • Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War • The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven, Eden, and the Flood
Languages