My Personal Ranking of Mark Twain's Works

1. The Mysterious Stranger
2. A Tramp Abroad (NF)
3. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
4. Life on the Mississippi (NF)
5. Pudd’nhead Wilson
6. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
7. The Private Life of Adam and Eve: Being Extracts from Their Diaries, Translated from the Original Mss.
8. The Prince and the Pauper
9. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
10. Those Extraordinary Twins
11. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
12. A Double-Barrelled [sic] Detective Story
13. A Dog’s Tale

Reviewing "The Sittaford Mystery" by Agatha Christie

Originally titled The Murder at Hazelmoor, The Sittaford Mystery possesses all the needed factors to make a quintessential Agatha Christie whodunit:

• Locked room” murder situation
• Small English village in the country
• Variety pack of suspicious characters
• Distracting fear of foreigners
• Level-headed police investigator
• Charismatic and beautiful young woman
• Ace reporter helping said young woman with an independent investigation
• Lots of random red herrings

My Personal Ranking: Charles Dickens' Works

Quick note: I am only including works by Dickens that I have actually read and remember. For example, I think I read Dombey and Son at one point, but can’t remember any of it! (I sense a reread coming on….) 

1. A Christmas Carol (I have to put it at the top of the list, if only because I have reread it most!)
2. Nicholas Nickleby
3. Our Mutual Friend
4. Great Expectations
5. Oliver Twist
6. David Copperfield
7. Little Dorrit
8. Bleak House
9. Sketches By Boz
10. The Pickwick Papers
11. The Mystery of Edwin Drood
12. Hard Times
13. Barnaby Rudge
14. A Tale of Two Cities
15. The Cricket on the Hearth
16. Martin Chuzzlewit
17. The Old Curiosity Shop

Charles Dickens vs. Mark Twain: Comparing Their Styles of Travel Satire

As I was being infuriated by Charles Dickens’ overwhelmingly negative portrayal of the United States in Martin Chuzzlewit, I could not help but compare his “satirical” treatment of traveling abroad with Mark Twain’s work, particularly A Tramp Abroad, which I have previously reviewed.

I loathed “The American Part” of Martin Chuzzlewit, where Englishmen immigrate to the United States. Yet I loved A Tramp Abroad where an American visits France, Italy, Switzerland, etc. This made me wonder: was I being a hypocrite, oversensitive about my own country being made fun of, yet laughing at other countries’ expense?