Samuel Clemens - or "Mark Twain" - came to California in May of 1864, arriving in San Francisco. Later that year he lived in Angel's Camp, where he mined for a time. It was in Angel's Camp that he heard the story of the Jumping Frog. He sent the story East, and it was first published Novenber 18, 1865, in the New York Saturday Press. Immediately popular, it was reprinted on December 16, 1865, in the Californian and was on its way to becoming the story of the year.

The story was reprinted by Twain in 1875 as "The Jumping Frog," and this book is a reprint of the 1875 edition. The book contains all the original illustrations, and in addition a number of contemporary wood engravings showing daily life of miners in the region.

The book actually contains two versions of the story: a straightforward telling of the story followed by a hilarious version that Twain says is a retranslation of the story as it had appeared in a French publication but "clawed back from the French into a civilized language."