Mark Twain

The Jumping Frog Mark Twain

"The Jumping Frog" (The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County) is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain. In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, about the gambler Jim Smiley. The narrator describes him: "If he even seen a straddle bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to wherever he going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road." It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention.