Mark Twain's Reading List
The 5 books that shaped Mark Twain — author & humorist.
America's greatest satirist whose wit exposed hypocrisy, racism, and the absurdities of human nature.
Influential Books
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain(1884)
Twain's masterpiece — a boy and a runaway slave on the Mississippi, and the most American novel ever written.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain(1876)
Twain's sun-drenched novel of boyhood mischief along the Mississippi — adventure as a way of life.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Mark Twain(1889)
Twain's savage satire — a 19th-century American in Camelot, skewering monarchy, superstition, and power.
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes(1605)
Twain loved Cervantes' comic masterpiece and drew on its tradition of satirical adventure.
The Autobiography of Mark Twain
Mark Twain(2010)
Published 100 years after his death as he requested — Twain's uncensored voice, as sharp and funny as ever.