Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
First edition book cover
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| Author | Mark Twain |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
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Publication date
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1909 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 121 |
| Preceded by | Is Shakespeare Dead? |
| Followed by | Letters from the Earth |
"Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" is a short story written by American writer Mark Twain. It first appeared in print in Harper's Magazine in December 1907 and January 1908, and was published in book form with some revisions in 1909. This was the last story published by Twain during his life.
The story follows Captain Elias Stormfield on his extremely long cosmic journey to heaven; his accidental misplacement; his short-lived interest in singing and playing the harp (generated by his preconceptions of heaven); and the obsession of souls with the "celebrities" of heaven, like Adam and Moses, who according to Twain become as distant to most people in heaven as living celebrities are on Earth. Twain uses this story to show his view that the common conception of heaven is ludicrous and points out the incongruities of such beliefs.
A lot of the description of Heaven is given by the character Sandy McWilliams, a cranberry farmer who is very experienced in the ways of heaven. Sandy gives Stormfield, a newcomer, the description in the form of a conversational question-and-answer session. The heaven described by him is similar to the conventional Christian heaven, but includes a larger version of all the locations on Earth, as well as of everywhere in the universe. All civilized life-forms from all planets travel to heaven, often through interplanetary space, and land at a particular gate, which is reserved for people from that planet. Each newcomer must thereafter give his name and planet of origin to a gatekeeper, who sends him in to heaven. Once inside, the person spends eternity living as it thinks best, usually according to its true (sometimes undiscovered) talent. According to one of the characters, a cobbler who "has the soul of a poet in him won't have to make shoes here", implying that he would instead turn to poetry and achieve perfection in it. On special occasions, a procession of the greatest people in history is formed, including Buddha, William Shakespeare, Homer, Muhammed, Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and several unknown people whose talents far exceeded those of the world's pivotal figures, but were never famous.
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