The breadth of Twain's work is considerable and can be found collected in any number of combinations. Most of his short work is humorous, along with a few essays and satires. He's known for his stories on Biblical themes, particularly given his cynicism towards the conventional religious interpretation of the Scriptures.

He published a number of travel accounts, including �Roughing It� and �Innocents Abroad,� which helped to solidify his reputation as a versatile writer. But his best known work are his novels, especially �The Adventures of Tom Sawyer� and its semi-sequel �The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.� While Tom Sawyer is a typical "boys will be boys" light read, Huckleberry Finn is a deeper and more dramatic work, following Huck's travels along the Mississippi River with a runaway slave Jim.

Just as iconic are his novels �The Prince and the Pauper� and �A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,� both of which have been rehashed countless times in popular culture. �Connecticut Yankee� demonstrates particularly well Twain's fascination with engineers and inventors, while at the same time dismantling some of the excesses of romanticism he saw in much of historical fiction.

Perhaps his most interesting work is also his most problematic: "The Mysterious Stranger," one version of which is sometimes included in short story collections, was unfinished during his lifetime. It is a social commentary challenging the commonly held notions of human nature and the universe. Many of the scenes are taken from the infancy gospels of Jesus, which in Twain's time had only recently been rediscovered. However, various drafts of the story have it taking place in either Missouri or Europe, either in Twain�s day or the Middle Ages, and none of them were finished. The story rambles and never comes to a satisfying conclusion, showcasing Twain's thoughts about the deterministic nature of the universe. The version most often published was prepared after the author�s death, combining different elements of various drafts and changing characters' names in order to make them fit together.