A Tale of a Tub
Robert Hendrickson notes in his book "British Literary Anecdotes" that "Swift was always partial to his strikingly original "The Tale of a Tub" (1704). On reading the work again in later years, he exclaimed 'Good God! What a genius I had when I wrote that book!'"
Johnson J. Hooper
His first published work, in 1843, was "Taking the Census in Alabama", drawn from his own experiences as a census taker in Tallapoosa County. In 1844 he began publishing short stories about the rascally Simon Suggs, which he collected and published in 1845 as the "Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs"; broadly, cruelly, and uncouthly humorous, yet one of the raciest books of its time, descriptive of a gambling sharp of the Southwest in the "flush times." The work made him nationally known, and may have inspired one or more characters of Mark Twain's. His "Widow Rugby's Husband and Other Tales of Alabama" (1851) was less successful.