Mark Twain A BBC Radio Drama Collect..., Mark Twain
Mark Twain A BBC Radio Drama Collect..., Mark Twain
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Mark Twain: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Million Pound Bank Note & More

Author: Mark Twain

Narrator: Full Cast, Jason Isaacs, Kelsey Grammer, Tom Goodman-Hill, Inika Leigh Wright, Trevor White, Ed Bishop, Jon Glover

Unabridged: 10 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/12/2022

Synopsis

BBC radio productions of Mark Twain's very best novels and short stories - plus bonus material

Mark Twain (real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens), was one of the foremost writers and humorists to come out of the United States. Hailed by William Faulkner as 'the father of American literature', he is renowned worldwide for his classic novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This wide-ranging collection comprises dramatisations and readings of a host of his much-loved stories, from well-known works to less familiar gems.

The adaptations include Tony Award-winning Bryony Lavery's rhythmic reworking of The Million Pound Bank Note; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, dramatised by award-winning playwright Marcy Kahan; and The Diary of Adam and Eve, Twain's affectionate satire about the battle of the sexes. They are performed by full casts including Trevor White, Mark Caven, Christopher Jacot, Inika Leigh Wright and Tom Goodman-Hill.

Among the readings are an abridged version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, in which Ed Bishop brings Tom's escapades to colourful life; the little-known yarn The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (read by Jon Glover) telling the tall tale of an inveterate gambler and a talented amphibian; and The Prince and the Pauper (read by Jason Isaacs), an abridgement of Twain's historical fantasy about two identical boys born on the same day - one rich, the other poor. And in Mark Twain Stories, Frasier star Kelsey Grammer reads five of the great author's finest short stories.
Also included is Kaleidoscope Feature: The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, charting the troubled 100-year history of Twain's controversial novel, which has gone from being banned to being beloved - and back again.

NB: Contains language that listeners may find offensive

Cast and credits
Written by Mark Twain. First published 1867 (The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County), 1868 (Cannibalism in the Cars), 1870 (The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract, A Ghost Story), 1875 (The Experience of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup, Niagara), 1876 (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), 1881 (The Prince and the Pauper), 1884 (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), 1893 (The Million Pound Bank Note), 1931 (The Private Life of Adam and Eve)

The Million Pound Bank Note
Dramatised by Bryony Lavery. Produced by Pauline Harris and Sharon Sephton
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 31 December 2011

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Abridged by Brian Miller. Read by Ed Bishop. First broadcast BBC Radio 5, 20-31 May 1991

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Dramatised by Marcy Kahan. Directed by Ned Chaillet. First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 15-29 December 2002

The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Read by Jon Glover. Produced by Mitch Raper. First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 4 September 1978

The Diary of Adam and Eve
Dramatised by Martin Glynn. Produced by Jenny Stephens. Directed by Peter Leslie Wild
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 20 March 2005

The Prince and the Pauper
Read by Jason Isaacs. First broadcast BBC Radio 7, 17 October 2009

Mark Twain Stories: The Facts in the Great Beef Contract, A Day at Niagara, Cannibalism in the Cars, A Ghost Story and Experiences of the MacWilliamses
Read by Kelsey Grammar. Abridged and produced by Duncan Minshull. First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 15-19 September 1997

Kaleidoscope Feature: The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Produced by Paul Quinn. First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 25 May 1996

©2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

About Mark Twain

Mark Twain is the pseudonym of American writer and humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), whose best work is characterized by broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire. Twain's writing is also known for realism of place and language, memorable characters, and hatred of hypocrisy and oppression.

Born in Florida, Missouri, Clemens moved with his family to Hannibal, Missouri, a port on the Mississippi River, when he was four years old. There he received a public school education. After the death of his father in 1847, Clemens was apprenticed to two Hannibal printers, and in 1851 he began setting type for and contributing sketches to his brother Orion's Hannibal Journal. Subsequently he worked as a printer in Keokuk, Iowa; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and other cities. Later, Clemens was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River until the American Civil War brought an end to travel on the river. In 1862 he became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, and in 1863 he began signing his articles with the pseudonym Mark Twain, a Mississippi River phrase meaning "two fathoms deep."

In 1867 Twain lectured in New York City, and in the same year he visited Europe and Palestine. He wrote of these travels in The Innocents Abroad, a book exaggerating those aspects of European culture that impress American tourists. Much of Twain's best work was written in the 1870s and 1880s, when he was living in Hartford, Connecticut, or during the summers at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, New York. Roughing It recounts his early adventures as a miner and journalist; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer celebrates boyhood in a town on the Mississippi River; A Tramp Abroad describes a walking trip through the Black Forest of Germany and the Swiss Alps; Life on the Mississippi combines an autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot with a visit to the Mississippi nearly two decades after he left it; and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court satirizes oppression in feudal England. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the sequel to Tom Sawyer, is considered Twain's masterpiece.

Twain's work during the 1890s and the 1900s is marked by growing pessimism and bitterness. Significant works of this period are Pudd'nhead Wilson, a novel set in the South before the Civil War that criticizes racism by focusing on mistaken racial identities, and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, a sentimental biography.

In Twain's later years he wrote less, but he became a celebrity, frequently speaking out on public issues. He also came to be known for the white linen suit he always wore when making public appearances. Twain received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1907. When he died he left an uncompleted autobiography, which was eventually edited by his secretary, Albert Bigelow Paine, and published in 1924.

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