Climb aboard the raft with Huck and Jim and drift away from the "sivilized" life and into a world of adventure, excitement, danger, and self-discovery. Huck's shrewd and humorous narrative is complemented by lyrical descriptions of the Mississippi valley and a sparkling cast of memorable characters.
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Originally written in 1881, this novel relates the hilarious adventures of Tom Canty, a ragged street urchin who bears a striking rsemblance to Edward VI, son of Henry VIII. Longing to experience the excitement of the outside world, the young prince persuades Tom to exchange places in society.
When A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court was published in 1889, Mark Twain was undergoing a series of personal and professional crises. Thus what began as a literary burlesque of British chivalry and culture grew into a disturbing satire of modern technology and social thought. The story of Hank Morgan, a nineteenth-century American who is accidentally returned to sixth-century England, is a powerful analysis of such issues as monarchy versus democracy and free will versus determinism, but it is also one of Twain's finest comic novels, still fresh and funny after more than 100 years. In his Introduction M. Thomas Inge shows how A Connecticut Yankee develops from comedy to tragedy and so into a novel that remains a major literary and cultural text for new generations of readers. This edition reproduces a number of the original drawings by Dan Beard, of whom Twain said 'he not only illustrates the text but he illustrates my thoughts.'.
Twain published this novel himself in collaboration with the firm of James R. Osgood. A satiric costume novel full of mock-elegant language and convoluted plot elements, THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER was a critical and financial failure in its day, and a personal disaster for Twain.
