A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (English Library)

by Mark Twain (Author), Dan Beard (Illustrator), Mark Twain (Author), Mark Twain (Author), Dan Beard (Illustrator), Mark Twain (Author), Justin Kaplan (Introduction), Justin Kaplan (Editor)

• New

  Paperback
  1976

  $11.68

  When Connecticut mechanic and foreman Hank Morgan is knocked unconscious, he wakes not to the familiar scenes of nineteenth-century America but to the bewildering sights and sounds of sixth-century Camelot. Although confused at first and quickly imprisoned, he soon realises that his knowledge of the future can transform his fate. Correctly predicting a solar eclipse from inside his prison cell, Morgan terrifies the people of England into releasing him and swiftly establishes himself as the most powerful magician in the land, stronger than Merlin and greatly admired by Arthur himself. But the Connecticut Yankee wishes for more than simply a place at the Round Table. Soon, he begins a far greater struggle: to bring American democratic ideals to Old England. Complex and fascinating, A Connecticut Yankee is a darkly comic consideration of the nature of human nature and society.

• Used

  Paperback
  1982

  $6.54

  Backgrounds and Sources includes selections on King Arthur from the Oxford Companion to English Literature; on the total eclipse from The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus by Washington Irving; and on the king's touch, the ascetic saints, and the financing of the Mansion House by W. E. H. Lecky. Selections from Clemens's letters, notebooks, autobiography, and other writings and newspaper reports of his 1886 manuscript reading at Governor's Island show how the novel developed. A section of the Beard illustrations includes material by Beard, Clemens, and Henry Nash Smith. The English edition is discussed by Dennis Welland. Early critical views are by Sylvester Baxter, William Dean Howells, Andrew Lang, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Whibley, Albert Bigelow Paine, John B. Hoben, and anonymous reviewers in the London Daily Telegraph and the Boston Literary World. The later critical essays are by Howard G. Baetzhold, James D. Williams, Kenneth S. Lynn, James M. Cox, Louis J. Budd, Henry Nash Smith, David Ketterer, and Everett Carter. A Selected Bibliography is also included.