Eve's Diary

by Mark Twain

Pages: 58

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About this book

Mark Twain gives the first woman a voice of her own in this comic diary, kept from her earliest days in a newly finished world. She notes the mountains left ragged after the rush of making them, a moon that slides loose in the night, and the stars she cannot bring down with a pole or a clod.

Her chief puzzle is another creature that she first takes for a reptile, perhaps even architecture, before deciding it is a man. She sets out to get acquainted, takes over the naming of things, and meets fire, smoke and fear one discovery at a time, each earning a fresh maxim in capital letters.

The humour comes from an innocent narrator reasoning from scratch about grammar, distance and beauty, with a vein of tenderness underneath. At under seven thousand words it is quick to read, and it suits anyone who likes Twain's wit in a gentler mood.

About the author

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He has been praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced", with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature".