The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
In this first and most well known sketch Mark interviews Simon Wheeler in search of information regarding one Leonidas W. Smiley. He found Mr. Wheeler in a "dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's". What he got was a series of tales about the gambling exploits of one Jim Smiley, most notably the tale of the jumping frog.
A Live Voice Presentation Recorded at Fate Gardens in Second Life as read by SLClemens
This is the first of what I hope will be an on-going collection of readings from the works of Mark Twain. The readings are from public domain versions of the texts, as published in The Oxford Mark Twain collection. Recordings were created using the least expensive Plantronics microphone/headphone set available and the Audacity program. The quality should improve as adjustments are made to input volume settings etc. If you like what you hear and would like to help this project please feel free to donate using the convenient PayPal donate button.
The first four of these sketches was presented in Second Life at The Botanical Gardens Event Center on March 15, 2011. This would not have happened except for the support of Isablan Neva, owner of this sim.
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Comments
New Video
I have re-recorded this story and produced a new slideshow video. This tale was the first of Twain's stories that I read aloud and recorded. This was in March of 2011. Since then I've had a bit more practice and valuable feedback from listeners. I hope you all like this new version. Text and images are from the Gutenberg project versions, the images were first published in the Harper & Brothers' 1903 edition.