The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel. But it is an art in itself. To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task. Many try and many fail. In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Mark Twain.Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in 1835 and is far better known by his pen name Mark Twain. An American author and humorist of the first order he is perhaps most famous for his novels, The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, written in 1876, and its sequel, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, written in 1885 and often described with that mythic line - the Great American Novel.Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the backdrop for these great novels. Apprenticed to a printer he also worked as a typesetter but eventually became a master