Synopses & Reviews
This 1881 novel about a poor boy, Tom Canty, who exchanges identities with Edward Tudor, the prince of England, is at once an adventure story, a fantasy of timeless appeal, and an intriguing example of the author's abiding preoccupation with separating the true from the false, the genuine from the impostor. Included is the story "A Boy's Adventure," written as part of the novel but published separately.
Synopsis
Tom Canty and Edward Tudor could have been identical twins. Their birthdays match, their faces match, but there the likeness stops. For Edward is a prince, heir to King Henry VIII, whilst Tom is a miserable pauper. But when fate intervenes, Edward is thrown out of the palace in rags, leaving ignorant Tom to play the part of a royal prince. Even those who have never read the novel will be familiar with Twain's classic tale of mistaken identity: at once an adventure story and a fantasy of timeless appeal.
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Synopsis
First published in 1881, The Prince and the Pauper is the story of a poor boy, Tom Canty, who exchanges clothes and identities with Edward Tudor, Prince of England. It is at once an adventure story, a fantasy of timeless appeal, and an intriguing example of the author's abiding interest in separating the true from the false, the genuine from the impostor. With characteristic humor and color, Twain brings to life the sixteenth-century royal court, the crowded, boisterous streets inhabited by London's hoi polloi, and the behavior of two young boys who are in many ways smarter than their elders. In spinning his tale, he draws on themes from ancient mythology, the Bible, familiar fairy tales, and popular children's literature of the period. Making a compelling case for the novel's relevance for readers today, Griswold shows how the novel reveals Twain's preoccupation with the elusive nature of identity - an issue that not only recurs in his work but also haunted his life. Also included in this volume is the story "A Boy's Adventure", originally written as part of the novel but published separately.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [xvii]-xviii).
About the Author
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, in 1835, and died at Redding, Connecticut in 1910. In his person and in his pursuits he was a man of extraordinary contrasts. Although he left school at twelve when his father died, he was eventually awarded honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Missouri, and Oxford University. His career encompassed such varied occupations as printer, Mississippi riverboat pilot, journalist, travel writer, and publisher. He made fortunes from his writing but toward the end of his life he had to resort to lecture tours to pay his debts. He was hot-tempered, profane, and sentimental-and also pessimistic, cynical, and tortured by self-doubt. His nostalgia helped produce some of his best books. He lives in American letters as a great artist, the writer whom William Dean Howells called "the Lincoln of our literature."