The adventures of a mischievous young boy and his friends growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century. It's a lazy Mississippi River town, a place where a boy can learn magical cures for warts, turn a fence-painting job into a leisurely con game, get lost in a cave, escape to an island, or attend his own funeral. It's a time when hooky is punished with a simple swatting and pockets bulge with firecrackers and dead rats; a time...

"Twain's firsthand portrait of the steamboat age and the science of riverboat piloting recalls the history of the Mississippi River, from its discovery by Europeans to the writer's own time." *** "Mark Twain's famous account of life on the Mississippi in the old steamboat days and his own experiences as a pilot. Its historical sketches, its frequent passages of vivid description, and its humorous episodes combine to make [this] a masterpiece of the...

Rebel without a cause (1955): The adolescent son of a well-to-do family gets into trouble with other kids and the police. East of Eden (1955): A wayward Salinas Valley youth vies for the affection of his hardened father with his favored brother. Cat on a hot tin roof (1958): A drama of the problems of a wealthy but decadent family in the South. A streetcar named Desire (1951): Set in the steamy squalor of New Orleans, the story of a neurotic woman's...