"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" is a piece of short fiction by Mark Twain. It first appeared in Harper's Monthly in December 1899, and was subsequently published by Harper & Brothers in the collection The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900). Some see this story "as a replay of the Garden of Eden story", and associate the corrupter of the town with Satan.In the story, a town has gained a reputation for incorruptibility. Its population is trained to avoid temptation. An offended stranger seeks revenge against the town's population, and starts tempting them with a reward in gold coins for a supposedly forgotten act of kindness. After receiving anonymous tips from the stranger, 19 of the town's most prominent couples claim the reward under false pretenses. Their dishonesty becomes evident in a public meeting, and they are publicly shamed. The stranger observes that the townspeople were actually easier than usual to corrupt, because their resolve had never been tested. The town's reputation is further ruined by an unintentional side-effect of the original plan. Source: Wikipedia (en)