Mark Twain is the rambunctious father of all cynics. His wry observations and biting jibes made him the first modern humorist. His sardonic sketches on everything from politicians, preachers, journalists, barbers, nagging wives, devious children, and gullible low-lifes are as hilarious and true today as they were when Twain hammered them out to make a name for himself on the frontier newspapers in the 1870s. Though humor saturates all his best-loved work, it is in the freewheeling exuberance of these early sketches and yarns that his love of pranks, hoaxes, yarns, slapstick, and parodies is shown to best effect. Throughout these tales, the violence, cruelty, and plum stupidity of human nature is woven into comic gold as he makes us roar with laughter at our own idiotic self-deception and vain conceit.