7 h 25 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 25 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when fortune, chance, and irony share the same page?
In The £1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other New Stories, Mark Twain brings together short tales of fortune, irony, and serendipity. Humour and satire shape the collection, inviting you to approach its grand title with curiosity—and a readiness to laugh.
The title story, The £1,000,000 Bank-Note, gives this collection its striking name. Alongside it are other stories that share the book’s interest in fortune and chance. Read for the humour, and stay for the ironic edge those themes promise.
What you’ll discover
- A fortune in the title Let the extraordinary bank-note draw you toward a tale with money at its heart.
- Chance worth following Explore serendipity as a thread running through this gathering of clever tales.
- An appetite for irony Meet stories that invite you to look for more than a straightforward account.
- Humour with an edge Enjoy the meeting of humour and satire in Mark Twain’s short fiction.
- Room for another story Move beyond the title tale into a collection linked by fortune, irony, and chance.
Who will love it
Readers who love a comic tale with a warm heart, a good joke at the expense of pompous people, and the sly, chatty voice of Mark Twain will enjoy this.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two bored brothers bet on a stranger
- A note nobody can change builds a fortune
- Love and a mining deal save the plan
- Twain claims letters cross because minds send thoughts
- The Great Bonanza letter and other coincidences
- A forgotten novel is loved for being awful
- Elfonzo and Ambulinia try to run away
- Ships have changed from floating baskets to palaces
- A courier loses everything and Berlin runs on rules
- A tax petition and a medical fossil mock the past
Who’s who
- Henry AdamsA young San Francisco clerk stranded in London, who must live thirty days on a note he cannot spend and hopes to win a job.
- Portia LanghamA lively young Englishwoman who meets Henry at the minister's dinner, laughs at his troubles and agrees to stand beside him.
- The two brothersTwo elderly London gentlemen, one of them named Abel, who make a bet over what a stranger holding a million pounds will do.
- Lloyd HastingsHenry's friend from San Francisco, ruined in London while trying to sell a mine, who begs for a way out.
- Major ElfonzoThe fiddling war hero of McClintock's novel, who goes back to school and wants to marry Ambulinia against her father's wishes.
- Ambulinia ValeerA spirited young woman of sixteen who loves Elfonzo and tries again and again to run away to marry him.
- Squire ValeerAmbulinia's proud father, who forbids the match and guards his house all night with a rusty sword and an iron lever.
Formats and delivery
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- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
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- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read today.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print hardcover
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Le billet de banque de £1,000,000 et autres nouvelles
by Mark Twain · 1893
A starving American gets a million pound note and thirty days to survive London while staying out of jail.
Medium level5–10 hours to readfrançais
Excellent
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In short
Picture a starving young man on a London street, eyes fixed on a pear with one bite gone, lying in the gutter. He is too ashamed to pick it up.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two bored brothers bet on a stranger
Henry Adams, a young man who works for a mining broker in San Francisco, drifts out to sea in a small boat. A ship picks him up and takes him to England. He works his passage as a sailor and lands in London with one dollar. Two days later he is ragged, hungry and out of money.
On Portland Place he stares at a pear with one bite gone, lying in the gutter. Each time he moves toward it, a passerby glances his way, and he pretends he is not interested. Then a window rises and a gentleman asks him inside. Two elderly brothers sit among the leftovers of breakfast and ask him about his life.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1893
- Language
- français
- Reading time
- 4 h 50 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Twain, Mark. The £1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other New Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-1-000-000-bank-note-and-other-new-stories.
Twain, M. (2026). The £1,000,000 bank-note and other new stories. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-1-000-000-bank-note-and-other-new-stories (Original work published 1893)
Twain, Mark. The £1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other New Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-1-000-000-bank-note-and-other-new-stories.
@book{twain20261000000,
author = {Twain, Mark},
title = {The £1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other New Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-1-000-000-bank-note-and-other-new-stories},
note = {First published 1893}
}
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What is The Million Pound Bank-Note about?
It tells of Henry Adams, a poor American stranded in London, whom two rich brothers lend a million pound note for thirty days to settle a bet. He cannot spend it, yet the rumor of it changes his life.
What is mental telegraphy in Mark Twain's essay?
It is Twain's name for thoughts passing from one mind to another across great distances, similar to what is now called telepathy. He backs it up with crossing letters, matching ideas and strange coincidences from his own life.
Is the novel in A Cure for the Blues a real book?
Twain presents it as a real pamphlet by G. Ragsdale McClintock, printed in 1845. He praises its mixed metaphors and empty speeches, then prints it in full, with the Georgia lovers Elfonzo and Ambulinia.
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
Voir tous ses livresMore like this
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