Is the mysterious stranger a fiction book?

Answer 1

Yes, it is- it was written by Mark Twain between 1890 and his death in 1910, and is the story of a young man called Satan, who is the innocent, non-evil nephew of the actual Biblical Satan. Two versions of the idea were written, the first set in Mediaeval rural Austria and the second version (which was retitled 'Schoolhouse Hill') set in the Edwardian USA- the latter had Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn befriending Satan and sharing in his adventures. Twain was working on a third version of the concept when he died, and which was left unfinished- it was basically a reworked draft of the first version, entitled 'No.44, The Mysterious Stranger: Being an Ancient Tale found in a Jug and Freely Translated from the Jug'. In this, the character of Satan is for some reason referred to as 'No.44', and appears at the door of a print shop to reveal to the printworkers (using his supernatural powers) the futility of human existence. The first edition of the story was published in 1916, and was essentially an edited transcript of the first version with the ending from the third version added on at the end. However, in 1982, the University of California Press released a scholarly edition of the third version of the story, which is believed to be the closest thing to the one that Twain would himself have had published if he'd lived to do so.