4 h 42 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 42 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a stranger’s calm questions make human goodness seem stranger than his supernatural powers?
In Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories, darkness meets sharp comedy. In the title story, boys in an Austrian village meet a beautiful young visitor called Satan. Theodor, their narrator, feels drawn to him, yet his extraordinary powers and detached talk of suffering trouble the boy.
Around them, poverty, suspicion, and religious authority give questions of right and wrong real weight. Elsewhere, animals debate a picture, a young hunter pursues a resourceful turkey, and a couple struggles with a burglar alarm. Each story puts human confidence under pressure, turning amusement into a reason to look again.
What you’ll discover
- An unsettling visitor Follow Theodor’s fascination as Satan challenges the human claim to know right from wrong.
- A mirror of certainty In A Fable, animals mistake a narrow view of a picture for complete understanding.
- Pride meets a turkey Hunting the Deceitful Turkey pits youthful confidence against a bird’s frustrating resourcefulness.
- Safety becomes a struggle The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm turns a couple’s search for security into comedy.
- Laughter with a bitter edge Meet human vanity through stories that move between comic frustration and troubling questions about cruelty.
Who will love it
This book is for readers who love a clever fable, a haunted old village, and a voice that makes you laugh and then think.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Fear leaves a kind priest exposed
- The stranger joins wonder with cruelty
- A welcome gift becomes an accusation
- Prosperity feeds the village's witch fears
- Satan treats fate as falling bricks
- The crowd acts against its conscience
- Comic mistakes expose familiar human habits
- Theodor holds wonder beside fear
- Sharp pictures turn judgment toward ourselves
Who’s who
- Theodor FischerThe organist's son who tells the story, loves the stranger, and goes along with the crowd even when his heart disagrees.
- Satan (Philip Traum)A beautiful young angel who works wonders for the boys while judging the human race coldly and without feeling.
- Nikolaus BaumanThe judge's cheerful son, always planning games and parties, who wants his two friends to be happy.
- Seppi WohlmeyerThe innkeeper's son, quick to pity and quick to speak, who shares Theodor's friendship with Nikolaus and fascination with Satan.
- Father PeterA kind, suspended priest who is accused of theft after finding a wallet of gold, and who wants only a quiet life.
- MargetFather Peter's clever niece, a harp teacher who wants to keep her uncle safe and her home from being taken.
- Wilhelm MeidlingA young lawyer who stays loyal to Marget and her uncle and tries to win their case.
- The astrologerA starry-robed fraud who hates Father Peter, wants fame and money, and accuses the priest of theft.
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The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories
by Mark Twain
Three village boys meet a charming angel named Satan, who builds a castle of clay people and crushes them.
Medium level2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
Imagine sitting on a wooded hilltop with two friends when a handsome stranger strolls up, lights your pipe with a breath, and tells you he is an angel. Then he gives his name, and it is Satan.
The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 40 min2 h 10 min fast, 3 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 38,500 words14 chapters
- Pages
- 115 pages174 in large print
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A sleepy village hides a priest in trouble
Eseldorf sits in the middle of Austria in 1590, far from the world and proud of its sleep. A castle looks down from the cliff above. The boys learn to be good Christians and little more, because knowledge is thought to make ordinary people unhappy with their place.
Two priests serve the village. Father Adolf is loud, and people respect him because he says he threw a bottle at the Devil. Father Peter is the priest everyone loves. He is kind and honest, and he refuses to believe the local astrologer. That refusal makes an enemy. The astrologer tells the bishop that Father Peter said God is good enough to save all His children. The bishop suspends the old priest, and friends fall away. His niece Marget loses her pupils. Only the young lawyer Wilhelm Meidling stays loyal.
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Also in the Mark Twain Book Set: Four Books
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Cite this edition
Twain, Mark. The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mysterious-stranger-and-other-stories.
Twain, M. (2026). The mysterious stranger, and other stories. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mysterious-stranger-and-other-stories
Twain, Mark. The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mysterious-stranger-and-other-stories.
@book{twain2026mysterious,
author = {Twain, Mark},
title = {The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mysterious-stranger-and-other-stories}
}
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What is The Mysterious Stranger about?
It follows three boys in the Austrian village of Eseldorf in 1590 who meet a charming young angel named Satan. He performs wonders and shows them human cruelty, while a priest is falsely accused and a witch scare grows.
Who is Satan in The Mysterious Stranger?
He is a young angel who says he is the nephew of the famous Satan. He also uses the name Philip Traum, whose surname means dream. He can read minds, work wonders, and feels no human pain.
What does the Moral Sense mean in the book?
It is the human ability to tell right from wrong. Father Peter calls it man's highest gift, but Satan calls it a burden, because it lets people choose cruelty knowingly.
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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