Publisher Description
"Upon the border of a remote and out-of-the-way village in south-western Missouri lived an old farmer named John Gray..."In 1876, the same year The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published, Mark Twain wrote a story for The Atlantic Monthly. He meant it as a "blind novelette"--a challenge to other writers to submit their own ending of the story in a national competition. Twain asked his editor at The Atlantic to request submissions from leading authors of the day, including Henry James.Perhaps because few writers could write as well as Twain, no one responded, and Twain's original complete manuscript languished in literary hibernation. It was rediscovered in 1995 and will appear in The Atlantic Monthly in summer 2001, having come full circle. Set in the fictional town of Deer Lick, Missouri, A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage chronicles the fortunes of a farmer determined to have his daughter marry the son of a wealthy man. It's a charming story in the Twain tradition and a delightful addition to his legacy.
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"I really enjoyed Mark Twain's (as he called it) "Blindfold Novelette". An interesting idea to share a skeletal outline for a story with other known authors of that time and then get together to exchange ideas and inspirations too bad that it never seemed to have went anywhere. Also a wonderful American history lesson by Roy Blount, Jr. included!"
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Melana (4 out of 5 stars)
About Mark Twain
Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel L. Clemens (1835–1910), was born in Florida, Missouri, and grew up in Hannibal on the west bank of the Mississippi River. He attended school briefly and then at age thirteen became a full-time apprentice to a local printer. When his older brother Orion established the Hannibal Journal, Samuel became a compositor for that paper and then, for a time, an itinerant printer. With a commission to write comic travel letters, he traveled down the Mississippi. Smitten with the riverboat life, he signed on as an apprentice to a steamboat pilot. After 1859, he became a licensed pilot, but two years later the Civil War put an end to the steam-boat traffic.
In 1861, he and his brother traveled to the Nevada Territory where Samuel became a writer for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and there, on February 3, 1863, he signed a humorous account with the pseudonym Mark Twain. The name was a river man’s term for water “two fathoms deep” and thus just barely safe for navigation.
In 1870 Twain married and moved with his wife to Hartford, Connecticut. He became a highly successful lecturer in the United States and England, and he continued to write.
About the Narrators
Roy Blount Jr. is an American writer. Best known as a humorist, Blount is also a reporter, actor, and musician with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock band composed entirely of writers. He is also president of the Authors Guild.
Garrison Keillor is America’s favorite storyteller. For more than thirty-five years, as the host of A Prairie Home Companion, he has captivated millions of listeners with his weekly News from Lake Wobegon monologues. A Prairie Home Companion is heard on hundreds of public radio stations, as well as America One, the Armed Forces Networks, Sirius Satellite Radio, and via a live audio webcast. Keillor is also the author of several books and a frequent contributor to national publications including Time, the New Yorker, and National Geographic, in addition to writing his own syndicated column. He has been awarded a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment of the Humanities. He is the winner of nine AudioFile Earphones Awards, several of which were for his own books. When not touring, he resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.