Posthumously published in 1962 by from a manuscript written in 1909.			Most likely, Mark Twain never intended Letters to be published, due to the unconventional opinions he expressed within; he wrote: "This book will never be published....in fact, it couldn't be, because it would be a felony."
In 1938, Bernard DeVoto became literary editor of Twain's estate; he decided to publish unused manuscripts that he deemed worthy of the public's attention; in 1939, he presented a manuscript of over 20 writings to the estate's trustees, seeking approval for publication.				Clara Clemens, Twain's daughter, objected to the publication of the manuscript, feeling that it misrepresented her father's beliefs about religion; as a result, publication of the book was delayed until 1962, when Clara died.
The serious-minded aspects of the now-published book, titled Letters From The Earth after the feature story, presented Twain in a new light for many 20th-century readers.			Letters spent 18 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list upon its release in 1962. About Letters, The New York Times wrote: "...The attitude is that of Swift, the intellectual contempt is that of Voltaire, and the imagination is that of one of the great masters of American writing."

Now then, you have the facts. You know what the human race enjoys, and what it doesn't enjoy. It has invented a heaven, out of its own head, all by itself: guess what it is like! In fifteen hundred eternities you couldn't do it. The ablest mind known to you or me in fifty million aeons couldn't do it. Very well, I will tell you about it.

1. First of all, I recall to your attention the extraordinary fact with which I began. To wit, that the human being, like the immortals, naturally places sexual intercourse far and away above all other joys—yet he has left it out of his heaven! The very thought of it excites him; opportunity sets him wild; in this state he will risk life, reputation, everything—even his queer heaven itself—to make good that opportunity and ride it to the overwhelming climax. From youth to middle age all men and all women prize copulation above all other pleasures combined, yet it is actually as I have said: it is not in their heaven; prayer takes it place....

2. In man's heaven everybody sings! The man who did not sing on earth sings there; the man who could not sing on earth is able to do it there. This universal singing is not casual, not occasional, not relieved by intervals of quiet; it goes on, all day long, and every day, during a stretch of twelve hours. And everybody stays; whereas in the earth the place would be empty in two hours. The singing is of hymns alone. Nay, it is of one hymn alone. The words are always the same, in number they are only about a dozen, there is no rhyme, there is no poetry: "Hosannah, hosannah, hosannah, Lord God of Sabaoth, 'rah! 'rah! 'rah! siss!—boom!...a-a-ah!"

3. Meantime, every person is playing on a harp—those millions and millions!—whereas not more than twenty in the thousand of them could play an instrument in the earth, or ever wanted to.

Consider the deafening hurricane of sound—millions and millions of voices screaming at once and millions and millions of harps gritting thier teeth at the same time! I ask you: is it hideous, is it odious, is it horrible?...

All sane white people hate noise; yet they have tranquilly accepted this kind of heaven—without thinking, without reflection, without examination—and they actually want to go to it! Profoundly devout old grey-headed men put in a large part of their time dreaming of the happy day when they will lay down the cares of this life and enter into the joys of that place. Yet you can see how unreal it is to them, and how little it takes a grip upon them as being fact, for they make no practical preparation for the great change: you never see one of them with a harp, you never hear one of them sing.

Letters is a collection of 11 letters from the Earth, in which Satan comments on the human race to archangels Gabriel and Michael. The story opens in Heaven, with Satan, Gabriel, and Michael seated around God's throne. The Creator forms a million suns in space, in order to begin the universe. Satan calls the self-regulating law in the universe The Law of Nature, or the Law of God.

Millions of years later, the Creator calls the archangels together to watch him create animals, intended as an experiment in morality. God presents his masterpiece, the human being, each with a different degree of moral characteristics. Satan is overheard making deprecatory remarks about God's industries, and is banished from the kingdom for a celestial day. He goes to Earth to witness firsthand this moral experiment, and writes to Gabriel and Michael about his discoveries.

Satan initally finds the people and animals of Earth to be insane. Humans believe they are the noblest work of God, and that they are all going to Heaven.

The humans' conception of Heaven is made up entirely of activities that they don't care to do on Earth, and leaves out their favorite pastimes. For example, constant prayer, singing, and playing the harp is considered normal behavior, while their greatest pleasure—sexual intercourse—is not a part of Heaven. Also, there is no consideration for separating people from different countries, even though foreign nationalities hate each other on Earth.

The concept of Christianity is discussed, with Satan telling how the humans invented the concepts of hell and a singular heaven, but they attribute these entities to God's creation. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, even though God commands humans to forgive offenders. The hypocrisy is that humans believe God to be just and righteous, but in reality God didn't concede to forgive his first two children. The rules that God makes for his children are different from those he follows.

Adam and Eve, and eventually their offspring, practice the Supreme Act, and populate the world. God is unhappy with the morals of the humans and decides to drown them all except for those on Noah's Ark.

Noah is charged with leaving large animals behind because he didn't have room for them. The animals sent prayers and supplications to God for mercy, but God has never answered a prayer and certainly never will.

The contradictory nature of the Bible God is discussed. God says that jealousy is a weakness, yet claims to be a jealous God. Jealousy is the key to understanding this God; it is the basis of his character. Even though God is presented with these shortcomings, he is still called Our Father by humans.

The housefly is shown as God's special representative, spreading disease around the world, and especially targetting the poor. God should be considered the worst enemy to the poor, but is still revered as their Father in Heaven. In history there isn't an instance of God doing a noble deed before a human had figured out how to do that same deed first.

Man creates his own laws to avoid those commanded by God. The Bible doesn't take temperament into account when punishing adultery. Woman are punished more severly than the very young and very old.

After the flood, Noah plants a vineyard and procedes to get drunk. God should have killed off the human race right then. God's inability to see that this would happen means he must be the Head Pauper of the Universe.

The Old Testament provides an image of the Deity as he was before he got religion, and the New Testament shows the Deity after he found religion. The first one is interested mainly in blood, war, and carnality, while the second in concerned with baptism by fire. As Jesus Christ, God created hell, because death provided an escape for humans from suffering.

God is far crueler in war than humans ever were. God killed the innocent and the guilty. From the pulpit, the Beatitudes should be read alongside the cruelty of Deuteronomy and Numbers to get a full picture of God.