2 h 13 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 2 h 13 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when Sherlock Holmes brings his famous certainty to the rough mining country of the American West?
In A Double Barrelled Detective Story, Mark Twain puts a crime, a thirst for revenge and a famous detective into a short comic novel. Sherlock Holmes trusts his powers of deduction. Archy Stillman, a Western tracker, finds truth through a natural gift of sense. Their different ways of investigating give Twain plenty to laugh at.
In the mining settlement, the harsh and feared Flint Buckner sets trouble in motion. Fetlock Jones, a young man tied to Holmes, has schemes that test the detective’s skill. Hidden identities and revenge give the comedy a darker edge. Beneath the jokes lies a sharp question: how much can a clever man really know from a handful of clues?
What you’ll discover
- Holmes away from home See the confident London detective face a very different world in the American West.
- A rival to deduction Meet Archy Stillman, whose natural gift offers another way to uncover the truth.
- Revenge beneath the laughter Follow a darker thread of revenge through a story full of comic mockery.
- People behind their masks Enter a mystery where hidden identities make people harder to read than they seem.
- The limits of cleverness Enjoy Twain’s sharp teasing of a detective’s faith in his own powers of reasoning.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy a sharp parody of detective fiction, a tale of revenge that grows odder by the chapter, and a rough mining camp full of talkative, quick-witted men.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A cruel marriage sets the story going
- A mother trains her son for revenge
- The hunter finds he is chasing the wrong man
- A silent boy plots a perfect murder
- The great detective arrives and the camp worships him
- A parody that favors plain facts
Who’s who
- Archy StillmanA young man with a bloodhound's sense of smell, sent by his mother to hunt down a man who wronged her.
- Mrs. StillmanArchy's Southern mother, who turns her old bitterness into a long plan of revenge and raises her son to carry it out.
- Fetlock JonesA meek English boy of sixteen or so, bullied by his master and quietly planning a murder that no one can trace.
- Flint BucknerA sour, unsociable miner who abuses his young helper and has just one friend in Hope Canyon.
- Sherlock HolmesThe famous detective who arrives in the camp to wide admiration and is uncle to Fetlock Jones.
- Sammy HillyerA kind, timid young miner and Archy's cabin mate, who is the only friend Flint Buckner has.
- FergusonThe Wells-Fargo agent, called Wells-Fargo by the miners, who leads the camp in worshipping Holmes.
- Jacob FullerA cheerful, well-liked mine owner in Denver whom Archy is sent to hound out of town.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 2 h 13 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 4 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Eine doppelläufige Detektivgeschichte
by Mark Twain · 1902
A boy with a bloodhound's nose hunts the wrong man, until Sherlock Holmes walks into a mining camp.
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In short
What if a bloodhound's nose could serve a mother's revenge, and a famous detective could be fooled by a few rags and splinters? Then it turns into a comic mining camp mystery that pokes fun at Sherlock Holmes.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A cruel marriage sets the story going
The book opens in Virginia in 1880 with a wedding that looks like a love story. The bridegroom, Jacob Fuller, is twenty-six. The bride is nineteen, proud, and beautiful. Her father warned her against the man, yet she defied him.
The morning after, the husband turns on her. He wants revenge on her father, so he shames the daughter the old man adores. For three months he invents humiliations, and she keeps them secret. Then one midnight he ties her to a tree by the public road, strikes her, and sets his hounds on her. He leaves her to be found, and he flees.
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What is A Double Barrelled Detective Story about?
It follows a young man with a bloodhound's sense of smell, trained by his mother to hound a man for an old crime. The tale moves to a silver mining camp, where a murder draws in Sherlock Holmes.
Is Sherlock Holmes really in the book?
Yes, Holmes appears as a character in Part 2, arriving in the camp to cheering crowds. Twain uses him to poke fun at the idea of the all-knowing scientific detective, and the miners treat him with comic awe.
Why is it called a double barrelled detective story?
The title plays on a double-barrelled gun. The book fires two shots at once, a serious tale of revenge and a comic parody of detective stories, and the two halves meet by the end.
The author
Mark Twain
1835–1910 · American humorist and novelist
Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, an American author born in Missouri in 1835. He lived in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1874 to 1891. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Prince and the Pauper (1881). He died in Redding, Connecticut, in 1910.
More by Mark Twain
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