It was also a difficult time for Twain personally, as he was forced into bankruptcy and devastated by the death of his favorite daughter, Suzy. Yet the title story still brims with confidence and optimism, marking the moment of hope just before Twain turned to the grim stories of his later years.
"The £1,000,000 Bank-Note" charts the magical rags-to-riches ascent of a virtuous and resourceful mining broker's clerk from San Francisco who arrives in London with a single dollar in his pocket, and proceeds to ultimate and splendid financial success and fame in London society—a paean to ingenuity and a celebration of its cunning confidence-man narrator. The other pieces range from "Mental Telegraphy," a serious essay reflecting Twain's continuing interest in the occult—he and his wife would later try several seances, poignantly and unsuccessfully, to contact their daughter Suzy—to a tongue-in-cheek "Petition to the Queen of England" for relief from taxes.