Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Stolen White Elephant
    The Stolen White Elephant
    The Stolen White Elephant
    Ebook56 pages34 minutes

    The Stolen White Elephant

    By Mark Twain

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1882
    Author

    Mark Twain

    Mark Twain, who was born Samuel L. Clemens in Missouri in 1835, wrote some of the most enduring works of literature in the English language, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was his last completed book—and, by his own estimate, his best. Its acquisition by Harper & Brothers allowed Twain to stave off bankruptcy. He died in 1910. 

    Read more from Mark Twain

    Related to The Stolen White Elephant

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Dances WithWolves

      Jun 9, 2020

      Dances WithWolves
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Escape Of Koravitch

      Sep 30, 2019

      The Escape Of Koravitch
      16 min read

    • Article

      La Otra Historia

      Jun 30, 2022

      La Otra Historia
      14 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      Bulletproof – Shootout In Runda, Namibia 1989

      Feb 17, 2023

      Obie Oberholzer: “The sound of the gunshots was deafening. Deadly thuds of bullets smashing into Ouma Roos Cloete's head, a ricocheting madness of cordite, flying glass from smashed booze bottles, a downpour of brandy, vodka and whisky. I was awakene

      4 min read

    • Article

      Richard Babcock

      Nov 7, 2020

      Richard Babcock
      2 min read

    • Article

      Leviathan

      Aug 10, 2022

      After we killed the passengers, we put the bodies in one of the low-pressure, unheated storage compartments. Some people had wanted to have some kind of solemn burial-in-space thing; that was too ghoulish for most of us, though. Mostly the ones we ki

      25 min read

    • Article

      I, Spy

      Aug 7, 2018

      Many things happened to me for the first time on a night in April 1944. I rode in a Black Maria; I jumped from a bomber with a tangled parachute; and I began my mission in wartime France as a British secret agent. We drove in the Black Maria from Int

      17 min read

    • Article

      My Albania

      May 24, 2017

      My Albania
      5 min read

    • Article

      Hog In The Limelight

      Dec 17, 2020

      Hog In The Limelight
      3 min read

    • Article

      Return Of The Anglo-Irish

      Jul 27, 2022

      Return Of The Anglo-Irish
      3 min read

    • Article

      Jack Jewers

      Sep 1, 2022

      Jack Jewers
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Old Un's Notes

      Jun 28, 2023

      If you want to be a bestselling writer, get on the GCSE syllabus. That's the message from the Bookseller magazine. It reports that the top-selling book on the syllabus is An Inspector Calls (1945) by J B Priestley, selling 123,059 copies this year th

      6 min read

    • Article

      79 The Terrible Grinning Men

      Sep 10, 2020

      79 The Terrible Grinning Men
      8 min read

    • Article

      Roger's PROFANISAURUS

      Nov 19, 2020

      Roger's PROFANISAURUS
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Iľja Rákoš

      Dec 12, 2021

      As long as there are authors, translators, publishers large or small committed to the deliberate word deliberately committed to the page, and so many who still need those words on pages, legal or illegal, right, left, or center, we’ll find our feet a

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Trials of Jared K.

      Apr 22, 2020

      The Trials of Jared K.
      6 min read

    • Article

      Community Of Peers

      Feb 10, 2021

      After the war, I travelled to a village in the south of the province. It was my intention to vacation for the weekend in an unknown land. I followed a small river that was alternately green beneath the foliage of the forest and blue while it coursed

      6 min read

    • Article

      Walking On TheWild Side…

      Jul 17, 2023

      Walking On TheWild Side…
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Memento

      Jan 16, 2022

      In the middle of the night, after a particularly tough day of interrogations in a Beijing security facility, the artist and dissident Ai Weiwei began to write what would become 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrow: A memoir. His tough, implacable interrogat

      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Oct 8, 2020

      Thank you for making my life more joyful month after month. I can’t tell you how important to me the Fortean Times is. Kevin Hope By email Regarding Matt Salusbury’s Forum article on sunken bells [FT396:54-55], there is more to the bells of Aberdyfi

      14 min read

    • Article

      Gay Hero Of The SAS

      Dec 14, 2022

      My elder brother Carlos was a pal of Paddy (real name Robert) Blair Mayne (1915-55) – one of the prominent SAS men in the BBC TV series Rogue Heroes. Back in the 1950s, they went carousing together around the many Dublin pubs. PBM was from a strict P

      3 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Jun 28, 2023

      Readers’ Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      Vladimir

      May 22, 2022

      Vladimir
      4 min read

    • Article

      Cruel Means, Bitter Ends

      Nov 10, 2021

      “In order for this speech to mean anything to me, I’ll need to dispense with the usual demagoguery and, instead, make an attempt at honesty. With this in mind, there is one thing I have to make clear. I’m not in this race to serve your interests, but

      12 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Sep 4, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Sep 4, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    Reviews for The Stolen White Elephant

    3.5/5

    17 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Oh I did enjoy the satire here, laughed out loud a couple of times. And Ingpen's art is terrific fun. But I don't know that this is a juvenile book, though Elko library filed it as such. An experienced reader might not 'get' enough of the humor to understand what's going on....

    Book preview

    The Stolen White Elephant - Mark Twain

    Project Gutenberg's The Stolen White Elephant, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

    Title: The Stolen White Elephant

    Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

    Release Date: August 19, 2006 [EBook #3181]

    Last Updated: October 29, 2012

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT ***

    Produced by David Widger

    THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT

    by Mark Twain

         [Left out of A Tramp Abroad, because it was feared that some

         of the particulars had been exaggerated, and that others

         were not true.  Before these suspicions had been proven

         groundless, the book had gone to press. —M.  T.]

    I.

    II

    III

    I.

    The following curious history was related to me by a chance railway acquaintance. He was a gentleman more than seventy years of age, and his thoroughly good and gentle face and earnest and sincere manner imprinted the unmistakable stamp of truth upon every statement which fell from his lips. He said:

    You know in what reverence the royal white elephant of Siam is held by the people of that country. You know it is sacred to kings, only kings may possess it, and that it is, indeed, in a measure even superior to kings, since it receives not merely honor but worship. Very well; five years ago, when the troubles concerning the frontier line arose between Great Britain and Siam, it was presently manifest that Siam had been in the wrong. Therefore every reparation was quickly made, and the British representative stated that he was satisfied and the past should be forgotten. This greatly relieved the King of Siam, and partly as a token of gratitude, but partly also, perhaps, to wipe out any little remaining vestige of unpleasantness which England might feel toward him, he wished to send the Queen a present—the sole sure way of propitiating an enemy, according to Oriental ideas. This present ought not only to be a royal one, but transcendently royal. Wherefore, what offering could be so meet as that of a white elephant? My position in the Indian civil service was such that I was deemed peculiarly worthy of the honor of conveying the present to her Majesty. A ship was fitted out for me and my servants and the officers and attendants of the elephant, and in due time I arrived in New York harbor and placed my royal charge in admirable quarters in Jersey City. It was necessary to remain awhile in order to recruit the animal's health before resuming the voyage.

    All went well during a fortnight—then my calamities began. The white elephant was stolen! I was called up at dead of night and informed of this fearful misfortune. For some moments I was beside myself with

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1