The Chronicle of Young Satan (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Samuel Langhorne Clemens
- First Published: 1916
- Type of Plot: Fantasy
- Time of Work: 1702
- Setting: Imaginary Austrian village of Eseldorf
- Principal Characters: Theodor Fischer, Satan, Father Peter, Father Adolf, Marget, Wilhelm Meidling, Nikolaus Baumann, Seppi Wohlmeyer
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Children, Dreams, Reality, Fear, Eighteenth century, Greed, Witches or witchcraft, Theft, Clergy, Conformity, Austria or Austrians, Western Europe or western Europeans, Boys, Priests, Satan or Satanism, Angels
- Locales: Austria
The Story
After a brief prologue, this unfinished story opens with young Theodor Fischer, Nikolaus Baumann, and Seppi Wohlmeyer playing on a hillside, where a handsome young stranger joins them. The stranger, who seems to read Theodor's mind, impresses the boys with amazing tricks, including fashioning miniature people and animals out of clay and bringing them to life. He reveals that he is an angel named “Satan,” a nephew of the great Satan, but as he is explaining that angels cannot commit sin, the tiny clay people begin to quarrel, and he quietly crushes them. Shortly...
[The entire page is 1611 words long]

