Description
Book SynopsisIn this eccentric etiquette guide, aphorisms, suggestions, and cautionary tales culled from Mark Twain's personal letters, speeches, and novels are dispensed on topics such as dress, health, food, childrearing, and safety.
Trade Review"This wonderful book illustrates precisely why we can never have enough Twain. His humor is timeless, his wisdom about all things without equal." - Ken Burns; "If you are wrestling with how to advance stimulating dinner conversation, what to do with unwanted magazine subscriptions, how to deal with the 'odious flummery' of fashion, or whether or not to bring your dog to the next funeral, Twain is here to offer his gentle guidance." - John Boyer, Executive Director of The Mark Twain House and Museum; "A delightful display of Mark Twain's wit and humor. This is the perfect gift book for any aficionado of Mark Twain, any connoisseur of the risible, or any stuffed shirt who needs to lighten up." - Gregg Camfield, editor of The Oxford Companion to Mark Twain"
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction 1. Everyday Etiquette A Letter of Apology About the Effect of Intemperate Language Be Good, Be Good. A Poem An Innovative Dinner Party Signal System About American Manners Breaking It Gently Courtesy to Unexpected Visitors At the Funeral A Telephonic Conversation 2. Modest Proposals and Judicious Complaints A Christmas Wish Proposal Regarding Local Flooding Complaint about Unreliable Service Notice about a Stolen Umbrella An Appeal against Injudicious Swearing An Unwanted Magazine Subscription On Telephones and Swearing About the Proposed Street-Widening Political Economy Notice. To the Next Burglar Suggestion to Persons Entering Heaven 3. The American Table Memories of Food on an American Farm American versus European Food An Inauspicious Meal A Remarkable Dinner Food and Scenery 4. Travel Manners Traveling in Close Quarters Communicating with the Locals A Night Excursion in a Hotel Room 5. Health and Diet Young Sam Clemens and Old-Time Doctoring The "Wake-Up-Jake" A Healthful Cocktail A Miracle Cure Experience of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup Smoking, Diet, and Health at Age Seventy 6. Parenting and the Ethical Child The Late Benjamin Franklin On Theft and Conscience On Training Children A Sampling of Childish Ethics Youthful Misdemeanors Advice to Youth 7. Clothes, Fashion, and Style A Fashion Item The Hand of Fashion That White Suit Clothes and Deception A Sumptuous Robe 8. In Case of Emergency Playing "Bear" An Apparition The Great Earthquake in San Francisco Escape of the Tarantulas Burglary and the Well-Tempered Householder Under a Policeman's Eye About the Texts Works Cited Acknowledgments
