Translated selections from: The £1,000,000 bank-note, and other new stories

Release date is 2023-05-16

Un pari de milliardaires -- Une pétition a la reine d'Angleterre -- La Chicago allemande -- La télégraphie mentale -- Un courrier amateur -- Un majestueux fossile -- Essais humoristiques sur des sujets variés: Bateaux modernes et vieux bateaux. L'Arche de Noé. La caravelle de Christophe Colomb. Un sentiment disparu.

Véronique Le Bris, Laurent Vogel, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica))

"Un pari de milliardaires et autres nouvelles" by Mark Twain is a collection of short stories written in the late 19th century. The work opens with a humorous tale involving a young man who comes to London with little money and finds himself embroiled in a peculiar wager between two wealthy brothers involving a million-pound banknote, exploring themes of luck, deception, and social status. At the start of the story, the protagonist, disheveled and famished, is saved from starvation by two wealthy brothers engaged in a heated debate over whether a resourceful stranger could survive in London with a mysterious million-pound banknote. After choosing him as their test subject, they entrust him with the note, leading to an amusing series of encounters as he navigates his newfound wealth while grappling with the absurdities and pitfalls of high society. As he begins to enjoy the benefits of his situation, he becomes increasingly concerned about the implications of the wager being made on his behalf and the fate awaiting him once the month ends, adding a layer of suspense to the comedic premise. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: France: Mercure de France, 1905