Mark Twain’s gloriously funny Diary of Adam and Eve, which John Updike described as a paradigm of the relations between sexes, is presented here with a number of other Twain pieces on our two oldest ancestors, showing the writer’s interest in this most famous episode of the Bible.

By giving a voice to Adam and Eve, and by hitting all the notes on the literary scale – from the intimate to the comical, from the journalistic to the idyllic – Twain displays the brilliance and wit for which he is rightly considered one of the greatest satirists of all time.