‘The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County’ is a short story written by Mark Twain. This piece of writing helped to bring Mark Twain national attention. That is the reason why it is considered to be his first big success.
What is interesting to highlight is that the story has been published under different titles, such as ‘The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County’ and ‘Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog’ which is the original title of the short story.
The gist of the piece of writing is as follows: the story about a gambler named Jim Smiley is retold by the narrator. What is vital to mention regarding the plot is that the narrator heard this story from a bartender at Angels Hotel in California.
One of the reasons why this story became so popular is that is is very amusing to read. The style is another vital aspect to mention, especially taking into consideration the fact that Twain typically paid a lot of attention to this aspect in the process of writing. In such a way, the author used a lot of grammatical errors, misspellings and repetitions in order to demonstrate the accent of the characters. What is more, such technique also helps to create the effect of authenticity. Apart from that, Mark Twain does not try to patronize anybody in his stories which has also contributed greatly to their success.
Taking everything into consideration, ‘The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country’ is an amusing and clever read with has helped Mark Twain finally achieve success as well as be noticed by the world of literature.