Search Worlds Without End

Mark Twain's unsettling imagination and passionate curiosity roamed far and wide--racing across microscopic worlds and interstellar voids, leaping ahead to fearful futures, and speculating on dazzling inventions to come. Tales of Wonder features some of the most notable but little-known science fiction available, penned by the famed American humorist and writer. With characteristic wit and acuity, Twain embarks on an epic journey into a drop of water, catches a glimpse of an invisible man, reveals a generation-starship-type world in the heart of a drifting iceberg, and imagines futuristic devices of instantaneous communication such as the "phrenophone" and "telelectroscope."

Twain pioneered the use of time travel to the past in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. As for the future, he envisioned a radical utopia of absolute suffrage and future histories in which a global theocracy holds sway or a monarchy rules America. This entertaining and absorbing collection of tales reminds us that the former steamboat pilot dreamed about the stars, anticipated and dreaded the future, and above all was continually surprised and enchanted by the world around him.

Was also published as The Science Fiction of Mark Twain

Contents:

• ix - Texts and Acknowledgments (The Science Fiction of Mark Twain) - (1984) - essay by David Ketterer
• xiii - Introduction (The Science Fiction of Mark Twain) - (1984) - essay by David Ketterer
• 3 - Petrified Man - (1862) - shortstory
• 4 - Earthquake Almanac - (1865) - shortstory
• 6 - A Curious Pleasure Excursion - (1874) - shortstory
• 10 - The Curious Republic of Gondour - (1875) - shortstory
• 14 - Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven - (1907) - shortfiction (variant of Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven)
• 61 - The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton - (1878) - shortstory
• 77 - Time Travel Contexts from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - (1889) - shortfiction
• 96 - Mental Telegraphy - (1891) - shortstory
• 112 - Mental Telegraphy Again - (1895) - shortstory
• 117 - My Platonic Sweetheart - (1912) - shortstory
• 127 - From the "London Times" of 1904 - (1898) - shortstory
• 139 - The Great Dark - (1962) - shortfiction
• 176 - The Secret History of Eddypus, the World-Empire - (1972) - shortfiction
• 226 - Sold to Satan - (1923) - shortstory
• 233 - 3,000 Years Among the Microbes - (1966) - shortfiction (variant of Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes)
• 327 - "The Mysterious Balloonist" - (1975) - shortfiction
• 331 - Synopsis of "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage" - (1945) - shortfiction
• 334 - "The Generation Iceberg" - (1979) - shortfiction
• 335 - Shackleford's Ghost - (1984) - shortstory
• 338 - "History 1,000 Years from Now" - (1972) - shortfiction
• 341 - Explanatory Notes (The Science Fiction of Mark Twain) - (1984) - essay by David Ketterer
• 381 - Selected Bibliography (The Science Fiction of Mark Twain) - (1984) - essay by David Ketterer