Sketches New and Old, Part 1.

"Sketches New and Old, Part 1" by Mark Twain is a collection of humorous essays and stories written in the late 19th century. The book presents a variety of Twain's sharp observations on everyday life, culture, and human behavior, often through a satirical lens. Themes explored include political economy, the absurdities of journalism, and the follies of human nature, with a comedic twist. The opening portion of the book includes a preface where Twain describes the contents and introduces some of the sketches that follow. Notably, he begins with a whimsical tale about his troublesome watch which malfunctions spectacularly after a series of repairs. In this sketch, Twain humorously recounts his interactions with various watchmakers and the absurdity of the watch's resulting behavior. He then transitions into another comedic piece on political economy, where he is hilariously interrupted multiple times by a salesman's overzealous attempt to sell lightning rods, illustrating the challenges of focusing on thoughtful discourse amidst mundane distractions. Through these anecdotes, Twain set the tone for a collection rich in wit and irony, combining personal narrative with broader social commentary. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." He also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and cowrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.