{"product_id":"the-man-that-corrupted-hadleyburg-isbn-9780976140795","title":"The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten on hotel stationary  while in Europe on the run from American creditors, soon after the death of a daughter,  \u003ci\u003eThe Man That Corrupted Handleyburg \u003c\/i\u003eis often cited as a work of bitter cynicism—a  statement on America, to some, on the Dreyfus Case, to others—created by a weary  author at the end of his career.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Another appreciation, however, is that it is, simply,  Mark Twain at his best. The story of a mysterious stranger who orchestrates a fraud  embarrassing the hypocritical citizens of \"incorruptible\" Hadleyburg. The novella  is an exceptionally crafted work intertwining a devious and suspenseful plot with  some of the wittiest dialogue Twain ever wrote. And like the most masterful literature,  it subverts any notion of easy conclusion: is Hadleyburg ruined, or liberated? Is  the mysterious stranger Satan, or a hero? Is this a book of revenge, or redemption?  One thing is clear: This brilliant novella is a complex and compassionate consideration  of the human character by a master at the height of his form.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eThe Art of The Novella Series\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eToo short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.\"I wanted them all, even those I'd already read.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Ron Rosenbaum, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Observer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Small wonders.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTime Out London\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\"\u003c\/i\u003e[F]irst-rate…astutely selected and attractively packaged…indisputably great works.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Adam Begley, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Observer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"I’ve always been haunted by Bartleby, the proto-slacker. But it’s the handsomely minimalist cover of the Melville House edition that gets me here, one of many in the small publisher’s fine 'Art of the Novella' series.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"The Art of the Novella series is sort of an anti-Kindle. What these singular, distinctive titles celebrate is book-ness. They're slim enough to be portable but showy enough to be conspicuously consumed—tiny little objects that demand to be loved for the commodities they are.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—KQED (NPR San Francisco)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Some like it short, and if you're one of them, Melville House, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, has a line of books for you... elegant-looking paperback editions ...a good read in a small package.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eMark Twain\u003c\/b\u003e was born Samuel Clemens in 1835 in Florida, Missouri, and raised in nearby  Hannibal. After apprenticing as a printer, he left home at 18 to travel the world.  He returned to captain a Mississippi riverboat for four years, then headed west on  a stage coach, filing absurdist travel stories for newspapers along the way—using  a river boater's warning for shallow waters as his pen-name. Chased out of San Francisco  after reporting on the police chief, he hid in a mining town and overheard a yarn  he turned into a successful story, \"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County\".  But true fame came with his 1876 novel \u003ci\u003eThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer\u003c\/i\u003e. It's sequel, \u003ci\u003eThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn\u003c\/i\u003e, is considered one of the world's great masterpieces. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn demand, Twain  wrote prolifically and lectured far and wide. He also founded a publishing house,  publishing the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. But when an investment in an early typewriter  failed, he fled the U.S. for Europe—a trip that saw the death of his daughter. His  wife died soon thereafter. Twain overcame his financial troubles, but not the loss  of his loved ones, and his last writings were dark works stretching beyond his homespun  narrative to fantasy, science fiction, and scathing political commentary. He died  in 1910.","brand":"Melville House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303427625189,"sku":"NP9780976140795","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780976140795.jpg?v=1767740393","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-man-that-corrupted-hadleyburg-isbn-9780976140795","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}