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From Ferry Boats to Jumping Frogs

Mark Twain, renowned as one of the most talented and famous American authors of all time, has a list of literary works that includes novels, short stories, and lectures. Although critics view many of Twain’s works as American hallmarks, not all of his works have received fame and flattering reviews. For example, while A Dog’s Tale remains relatively unknown, lacking much literary criticism, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is considered one of Mark Twain’s most famous short stories and an American classic. The difference in the varying success and popularity of Mark Twain’s works is determined by the story’s audience, themes, and contrasting tones.

One of the main determining factors in a story’s success is how it is perceived by it’s audience, and the audience is something that is very different for Mark Twain’s stories. Before Mark Twain ever became a famous literary figure, he was just a river pilot on the Mississippi (Merriman). It was when Twain published The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County that he was whisked into the public limelight as a talented writer, gaining him fame and recognition, while at the same time giving him the boost that he needed to continue on with his writing career (“Mark Twain: The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”). However many years later, when Mark Twain wrote A Dog’s Tale, he had already been famous for some time. A Dog’s Tale was published in 1904, though it never became nearly as well known or popular as some of Twain’s previous works. So why is it that one of Twain’s short stories can make him famous while another had almost no effect on his career trajectory and is hardly read by anyone today? A large part of why The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is so much more popular and well known than A Dog’s Tale has to do with the audience of the two stories. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was written for a newspaper called “The Territorial” in which Mark Twain and his fellow writers would actually have contests to see who could create the most absurd, yet still believable stories (“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”). So when writing The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Mark Twain was trying to appeal to an audience that would be entertained by such a tale. The audience reading “The Territorial” might be juvenile or just seeking a good laugh, but they were certainly not literary critics. Therefore, although The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County does contain a good deal of symbolism, figurative language, and themes that relate to the time period, it was made popular because of its humorous tone and characters that the audience can relate to. A Dog’s Tale, was aimed at a very difference audience. The audience of A Dog’s Tale would most likely be much more sophisticated and knowledgeable about current issues than that of many of Twain’s other works (Davey). Since the story is meant to be neither humorous nor entertaining, the audience is not just simply looking for a laugh or something to pass their time. While The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is primarily aimed at entertaining its audience, A Dog’s Tale requires the audience to think deeper about their morals and societal issues, and that is not very appealing to the general public. Therefore, although Twain was already a renowned writer by the time he wrote A Dog’s Tale, a large reason why the story was not made as popular as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was because the two stories were aimed at very different audiences.
Another important factor as to why some of Mark Twain’s stories became much more popular than others has to deal with the themes of the story. While A Dog’s Tale is characterized by its deep and meaningful themes, aimed at its sophisticated audience, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County has less complex and in-depth themes, aimed at a less scholarly audience. Some of the primary themes of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County are the intellectual difference between easterners and westerners, deception, and gambling (Ryan-Dey). These themes are themes that are not hard for a general or uneducated audience to relate to, therefore the story has a wider and more popular audience. On the contrary, A Dog’s Tale contains themes that are harder for a general audience to understand. Some of the themes of A Dog’s Tale include the use of language as a weapon, the evils of science, and slavery (Herzberg 20). Themes such as these are not easy to pull out of A Dog’s Tale, in fact they require a deep reading and analysis of the story, and this means that the story has a much smaller readership than some of Mark Twain’s other stories such as A Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. An important factor as to why Twain decided to write one story with more basic and understandable themes and another story with highly complex themes has to do with the cultural context of the stories. Because The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was one of Twain’s first publications, he wanted to appeal to a popular audience in order to get his name flowing in the literary world and become more well known. In order to appeal to a popular audience, he knew that the story needed to have entertaining themes that were relative to the cultural time period. However because A Dog’s Tale was written later on in Twain’s career, it was Twain’s main interest to appeal to a more sophisticated audience and so he wrote a story with controversial themes that were much harder to decipher. While the themes of Mark Twain’s stories do make a difference in how popular the story is, the aspect of the story that makes the biggest difference in its popularity is whether or not the story can make the reader laugh.
A major and noticeable difference when comparing the stories of Mark Twain is the stark contrast in tone between many of his stories. A Dog’s Tale and The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County are perfect examples of the contrasting tones of Mark Twain. While A Dog’s Tale displays a serious, somber, and sophisticated tone, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is characterized by a more humorous and entertaining tone (Davey). A large factor in what kind of tone a story displays are the themes of the story and the events of the story. Because A Dog’s Tale contains more complex and divisive themes, the tone of the story is more serious and scholarly. A serious tone is certainly not a bad thing, in fact the story’s themes have more of a resonating effect when displayed through a somber tone. However one major consequence of a serious and scholarly tone is a smaller readership, because there are less people who want to read one of Mark Twain’s short stories that have a serious tone than there are that want to read one of his stories that have a humorous tone. One of the most important reasons why The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County became so famous so quickly is because people actually wanted to read it. People are interested in reading a story that will make them laugh. The story contains humorous scenarios and characters that readers can laugh at (“Mark Twain: The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”). In this way, readers can relate to the story while being entertained, which makes the story very pleasant to read. This means that the tone of the story, something determined by both the themes of the story, the language of the story, and the events of the story, actually plays a huge role in determining how popular the story is going to be.

Although Mark Twain is commonly regarded as one of the most talented and popular American authors to ever live, not all of his stories are as popular as he is. The main factors that separate Mark Twain’s most famous stories from his least popular stories are the stories audiences, themes, and use of a humorous versus somber tone. Along with these three main factors, the cultural context of the stories, such as Mark Twain’s career path, also has a significant effect on the success of the story. The correlation between Twain’s writing styles and the relative popularity of his works are clearly displayed through the comparison of A Dog’s Tale and The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

Works Cited 

Herzberg, Gary S. “A Dog’s Tale: An Expanded View.” Mark Twain Journal. Winter 1977-1978: 20.           Print. 


 “Mark Twain: The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Tu-chemnitz.de. N.P. N.D. Web. 5 October 2011. 


 Davey, Douglas P. “School Library Journal.” Graphicclassics.com. N.P. 1 March 2004. Web. 5 October 2011.

Merriman, C.D. “Mark Twain.” Online-Literature.com. Jalic inc. 2006. Web. 5 October 2011.


 “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Shmoop.com. N.P. 2011. Web. 5 October 2011.


 Ryan-Dey, Laurie. “A Taste of Reality.” Ryangraphics.com. N.P. 17 March 2008. Web. 5 October 2011. 

Twain, Mark. “A Dog’s Tale.” Americanliterature.com. N.P. N.D. Web. 5 October 2011. 


 Twain, Mark. “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Americanliterature.com. N.P N.D. Web. 5 October 2011.