A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

<p>One of Twain's best-loved stories next to his classic tales of Huck and Tom, <b>A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court</b> vibrates with slapstick comedy and serious social commentary. While Hank Morgan, Twain's time-displaced Yankee traveler, keeps up a steady stream of flippancies, founding the first tabloid, the <b>Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano</b>, and organizing a game of baseball between armor-clad knights, he also keeps up a steady commentary on the social mores of King Arthur's court, criticizing the hereditary social classes and state church still strong in the Victorian England of Twain's own day, and championing women's suffrage and union labor organization. Widely regarded as one of the first science fiction novels, this edition also features an introduction by Kurt Vonnegut, our own twentieth century master of satiric social commentary and science fiction. It also features the original illustrations by Dan Beard, chosen by Twain himself to illustrate the book, whose drawings brilliantly mix buffoonery with sharp social satire: sharp-eyed readers, for instance, will spot that the model for Merlin, Hank's nemesis, is none other than Tennyson, whose Idylls of the King made the romantic vision of King Arthur's court nearly a sacred Victorian cult. By turns side-splittingly funny and somberly thought-provoking, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is Twain at his finest.</p> <p>A blow on the head transports a Yankee to 528 A.D. where he proceeds to modernize King Arthur's kingdom by organizing a school system, constructing telephone lines, and inventing the printing press. </p>

Author(s): Mark Twain  

ISBN 10: 0195101413
ISBN 13: 9780195101416
Pages: 656
Format: Hardcover
Publication: 1996/11/01
Edition: 1