Description
Letters from the Earth is one of Mark Twain's posthumously published works. The essays were written during a difficult time in Twain's life; he was deep in debt and had lost his wife and one of his daughters. The book consists of a series of short stories, many of which deal with God and Christianity. Twain penned a series of letters from the point of view of a dejected angel on Earth. The title story consists of letters written by the archangel Satan to the archangels Gabriel and Michael about his observations on the curious proceedings of earthly life and the nature of man's religions. By analyzing the idea of heaven and God that is widely accepted by believers, Twain takes the silliness he observes and examines it with a cold, unsentimental common sense. It is not so much an attack as a cold dissection. Other short stories in the book include a bedtime story about a family of cats Twain wrote for his daughters, and an essay explaining why an anaconda is morally superior to man. Twain's writings in Letters from the Earth find him at perhaps his most quizzical and questioning state ever.