Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven

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Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven

This is a humorous short story by Mark Twain. It first appeared in Harper’s Magazine in 1907–1908 and was published in book form in 1909. It was the last story Twain published before his death.

The plot follows Captain Elias Stormfield as he travels through space after chasing a comet and arrives in Heaven. A cranberry farmer named Sandy McWilliams explains Heaven to him in a conversational, question-and-answer style. Heaven is like a vast, expanded version of Earth and the universe, with countless gates for people from every planet. Each newcomer tells a gatekeeper their name and where they came from.

Inside Heaven, people spend eternity doing what they enjoy most, based on their real talents. If a cobbler has the soul of a poet, he won’t have to make shoes—he’ll write poetry instead. Periodic processions of history’s great figures take place, including famous names like Buddha, Shakespeare, Homer, Muhammad, and others, along with lesser-known masters who were more talented than famous people on Earth.

Twain challenges common images of angels and Heaven. The familiar wings, harps, and halos are not literal; they’re part of the uniforms, and people must understand Heaven through figurative language. Visitors choose the age they want to be, aligning with the time of life when they were happiest. Anything a person desires can be granted, as long as it does not violate Heaven’s rules, which are different from earthly ones.

Heaven contains every person who ever lived, in Earth-like regions that include all the people from that area. Families are not always together forever, because of choices made by those who died first. The society in Heaven includes people of all kinds, and some surprising facts are noted—for example, white-skinned people are a minority there, and kings aren’t powerful in Heaven (even a king can be a comedian).

The story’s manuscript dates back to the 1860s and 1870s, with revisions over the years. It was satirical in part about Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward’s popular novel The Gates Ajar and mentions several public figures known in its time.

There is also a 1985 claymation film, The Adventures of Mark Twain, which reimagines the tale in a very different way. In that version, Stormfield’s journey to Heaven involves a surreal encounter and ends with a tongue-in-cheek critique of the traditional idea of Heaven, famously concluding with the line that questions the need for the usual symbols of heaven—harp, hymnbook, and wings.