The Stolen White Elephant and Other Detective Stories

The King of Siam's decision to send the Queen of England a literal white elephant as a gift sets in motion a broad farce targeting the self-proclaimed brilliance of the corrupt and incompetent chief of New York City detectives in Twain's delightfully absurd story, "A Stolen White Elephant." In "Tom Sawyer, Detective," writes Lillian Robinson in her afterword, "Twain casts his famous Missouri adolescents, Tom and Huck, in the roles of Conan Doyle's phenomenally successful detectives, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson." The story of mistaken identities, diamond thefts, and murders is set at the Phelps farm, where the final chapters of Huckleberry Finn take place. "A Double Barreled Detective Story," Twain's spoof of the mystery genre, then in its infancy, introduces the reader to Sherlock Holmes as he has never been seen before or since. Far from his usual elegant London haunts, the great detective is caught up in a melodramatic murder mystery of love, betrayal, and vengeance in a rough California mining town.