It is set in the U.S., and concerns the adventures of the familiar characters Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer with Satan, referred to in this version as "No.
This version also introduces an idea that Twain was toying with at the end of his life, involving a duality of the "self", composed of the "Waking Self" and the "Dream Self".
[7] In 1963, scholars led by researcher John S. Tuckey carefully examined Twain's papers and manuscripts and discovered that Paine had not only tampered with and patched together three previously unfinished manuscripts but also had with assistance from Frederick Duneka added passages not written by Twain in order to complete The Mysterious Stranger.
[10] Nevertheless, Gibson also admits that "the cut, cobbled-together, partially falsified text has the power to move and to satisfy esthetically despite its flaws.
For instance, instead of a lingering death due to illness, Satan simply causes one of Theodor's friends to die immediately.
In the village and in other places around the world where Satan transports them magically, the boys witness religious fanaticism, witch trials, burnings, hangings, deaths and mass hysteria.
Finally, Satan vanishes after explaining: Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction!
Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...
44, The Mysterious Stranger was shot by The Great Amwell Company and shown in the United States on PBS, and later on HBO and was directed by Peter H. Hunt.
Satan expresses curiosity and eventually spite toward their creations when the clay people display infighting and inflict cruelty on one another.
He causes plagues and natural disasters to destroy the small community, buries the ruins with an earthquake, and causes wild vegetation to engulf the spot where the clay people once lived, demonstrating the futility and insignificance of mankind—much to the horror of the children, with Huck Finn uttering "You murdered them!"
In this version, Satan appears playful and friendly when he constructs the small kingdom, slowly revealing himself as cruel and hateful as he destroys it (although he claims he "can do no wrong" since he does not understand the word's meaning).
As his true nature is revealed, the mask gradually changes from a pleasant appearance to a demonic visage and finally a grinning skull.
44, The Mysterious Stranger to Mark Twain as his parting remark to the children: The human race in all its poverty has only one truly effective weapon: Laughter.
In 1989, a film adaptation of this book was shot in the Soviet Union by Igor Maslennikov and released under the title Filipp Traum.
[8][9] Artist Ted Richards drew a comic-strip adaptation of "The Mysterious Stranger" for his "Dopin' Dan" character in "Rip-Off Comix No.