Sketches New and Old (1875)

The 1875 collection of Twain's early newspaper and magazine sketches, and the place to find his short-form absurdity. "Journalism in Tennessee" turns a small-town newspaper office into a war zone, and "My Watch" follows a perfectly good watch through a series of repairmen who each leave it worse. These pieces were written for a quick laugh in a periodical, so quality varies. Read a few at a sitting and skip any that fall flat; the best ones show how much of modern comic writing Twain had already worked out.