--- title: "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven by Mark Twain…" description: "Read a free sample of Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven by Mark Twain at Publica Now — a public-domain classic ebook, readable online." canonical: "https://publica.now/creators/vito/works/extract-from-captain-stormfields-visit-to-heaven" --- Literary # Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven by Mark Twain [ V Vito ](https://publica.now/creators/vito) Follow $2.99 [ Sign in to buy ](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcheckout%2Fextract-from-captain-stormfields-visit-to-heaven) Secure payment on Stripe. publica.now never sees your card. Share Link copied Format epub Published May 02, 2026 Rating No reviews yet ![Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn15eym6bjfzq74kaprhpm4/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260921%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260921T192624Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=29dc8d4b26e47e61c80094d74fee6c7c5c6b7c727b193e575c0595a3a1bb6aa6) ## About this work Dead for thirty years, Captain Stormfield is growing anxious. He has been hurtling through space like a comet, pointed straight for the Hereafter—and he is in no mood to travel quietly. When an immense comet appears off his starboard bow, Stormfield does what any self-respecting sea captain would do: steadies his helm, gives chase, and measures the heavens in nautical miles and sailor’s boasts. The result is a wildly comic voyage through a universe far larger and stranger than anything known “down here.” With its extravagant scale, vivid shipboard commands, and irrepressible narrator, this extract showcases Mark Twain’s gift for puncturing solemn subjects with plainspoken humor. A playful satire of imaginary voyaging and religious expectations, it invites readers aboard for a gloriously unconventional passage toward Heaven. This Publica.now Classics edition includes a new typographic cover and publisher opening and closing pages. Sample ## Take a look inside Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven BY Mark Twain NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS Copyright, 1909, by Mark Twain Company Printed in the United States of America CHAPTER I Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. Like a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them! Of course there warn’t any of them going my way, as a steady thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of a lasso, whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart for the Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that was going my way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a brush together. But it was generally pretty one-sided, because I sailed by them the same as if they were standing still. An ordinary comet don’t make more than about 200,000 miles a minute. Of course when I came across one of that sort—like Encke’s and Halley’s comets, for instance—it warn’t anything but just a flash and a vanish, you see. You couldn’t rightly call it a race. It was as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a telegraph despatch. But after I got outside of our astronomical system, I used to flush a comet occasionally that was something like. We haven’t got any such comets—ours don’t begin. One night I was swinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, and the wind in my favor—I judged I was going about a million miles a minute—it might have been more, it couldn’t have been less—when I flushed a… [ Sign in to buy ](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcheckout%2Fextract-from-captain-stormfields-visit-to-heaven) The sample continues in the full work. [ #Satire ](/search?query=Satire) [ #Voyages, Imaginary ](/search?query=Voyages%2C+Imaginary) [ #Ship captains -- Fiction ](/search?query=Ship+captains+--+Fiction) [ #Religious fiction ](/search?query=Religious+fiction) [ #Heaven -- Fiction ](/search?query=Heaven+--+Fiction) [ #Ship captains ](/search?query=Ship+captains) [ #Heaven ](/search?query=Heaven) [ #Mark Twain ](/search?query=Mark+Twain) ## Reviews No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts. [Sign in to leave a review](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcreators%2Fvito%2Fworks%2Fextract-from-captain-stormfields-visit-to-heaven) No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts. 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