Mark Twain

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain, which recounts the life of Joan of Arc. It is Twain's last completed novel, published when he was 61 years old. The novel is presented as a translation by "Jean Francois Alden" of memoirs by Louis de Conte, a fictionalized version of Joan of Arc's page Louis de Contes. Twain was aware of his reputation as a comic writer and he asked that each installment...

These acerbic, poignant, and thought-provoking essays concern mankind, its relationship with God, and how the mind works. Twain himself considered them dark and cynical, delaying their publication for many years before finally releasing them as an anonymous, limited-edition collection. The title essay constitutes a deeply felt blow against religious hypocrisy, written in the form of a Socratic dialogue between a young idealist and an elderly, world-weary...

In On the Decay of the Art of Lying (1880), Mark Twain offers a witty, satirical defense of lying as a necessary and even noble human art. He begins by observing that lying is a universal trait, present in everyone, but laments that it is no longer done skillfully or for virtuous reasons. Twain argues that lying, when done with good intentions-such as to protect others' feelings or preserve harmonies, is far preferable to harsh truth-telling that...