Wartime wandering through the Eastern states by bicycle, truck, and riverboat. 1944.

In 1944, a dear friend, Doris Roy, and I undertook an adventurous journey that we dreamed of during countless hikes together over our college holidays. We had been Camp Fire Girls together, loving the out-of-doors, camping and hiking the open road. Our dreams finally developed into a plan to ride bicycles from our home in Buffalo, New York, to Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio River met the Mississippi. We admired Mark Twain’s adventures, had read his Life on the Mississippi, and sought to follow his path to the Midwest. We were 21 years old...
posted by Fuzzy Skinner on Dec 28, 2008 - 9 comments

Mark Twain was the first to talk about using fingerprinting in criminal cases. His 'Life on the Mississippi', published in 1883, contains a collection of essays and short stories. One such story concerns a man who had attempted to catch the killers of his wife and child by using fingerprint evidence. Mark Twain was evidently greatly interested in the subject. He had made a study of finger and hand marks. Fingerprinting wasn't commonly used to identify criminals in the U.S. until around 1903.
posted by flipyourwig on Dec 23, 2008 - 16 comments

The vault at Pfaffs where the drinkers and laughers meet to eat and drink and carouse
While on the walk immediately overhead pass the myriad feet of Broadway
As the dead in their graves are underfoot hidden
And the living pass over them, recking not of them,
Laugh on laughers! Drink on drinkers!

posted by Miko on Aug 15, 2008 - 9 comments

Huck Finn, Heart of Darkness, A Tale of Two Cities, and others - free audio books. Text and audio on the web, or downloadable mp3s with embedded text.
posted by Wolfdog on Mar 4, 2007 - 15 comments

After breakfast we elected a man by the name of Walker, from Detroit, for supper. "Cannibalism in the Cars," by Mark Twain.
posted by Astro Zombie on Aug 18, 2006 - 15 comments

Democratic presidential candidate rails against US imperialism. "The platform . . . condemns the experiment in imperialism as an inexcusable blunder, which has involved us in enormous expense, brought us weakness instead of strength, and laid our nation open to the charge of abandoning the fundamental principles of a republic."
A prominent American author who initially supported the conflict, changed his mind, calling it "a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater.” The US is “the kind of World Power . . . that a prairie-dog village is . . . it is the duty of our Government to stand sentinel, with solemn mien, and lifted nose, and curved paws, on top of our little World-Power mound.”
posted by insomnia_lj on Mar 20, 2006 - 25 comments

The War Prayer, by Mark Twain. I always like running across this kind of unpublished Twain gem. He's absolutely amazing at making his readers think. [via boingboing]
posted by swell on Sep 14, 2001 - 5 comments