Synopses & Reviews
ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP
A nineteenth-century American travels back in time to sixth-century England in this darkly comic social satire.
THIS ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:
- A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information
- A chronology of the author's life and work
- A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
- An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's own interpretations
- Detailed explanatory notes
- Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
- Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
- A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON
Synopsis
A nineteenth-century American travels back in time to sixth-century England in this darkly comic social satire.
This Enriched Classic edition includes:
- A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information
- A chronology of the author's life and work
- A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
- An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's own interpretations
- Detailed explanatory notes
- Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
- Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
- A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
Synopsis
A nineteenth century American travels back in time to sixth century England in this darkly comic social satire. Hank Morgan is the pinnacle of nineteenth century Yankee practicality. After getting hit over the head with a crowbar in a brawl, he awakens to find that he has traveled back in time to sixth century England, the domain of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. His basic knowledge of such subjects as astronomy and mechanics quickly gains him a reputation as a powerful magician, and earns him the nickname The Boss. He wastes no time in taking advantage of the situation and making certain improvements to Arthur's kingdom: laying ground wires for telegraph and telephone services; establishing a newspaper; and working to undermine the feudal system and replace it with democracy. But the social class system, the innate superstitions of populace, and the power of the church prevent Hank from effecting a lasting change.
Written during a time of personal philosophical change for Twain, this dark comic novel begins as a critique of monarchic government, but ultimately satirizes the modern technology the Boss tries to bring to the Britons, culminating in a terrifying, apocalyptic vision of war and chaos.
This edition includes:
-A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information
-A chronology of the author's life and work
-A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
-An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's own interpretations
-Detailed explanatory notes
-Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
-Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
-A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
Synopsis
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court involves time travel, as a nineteenth century man finds himself in sixth century England after suffering a head injury. He finds social and political conditions there just as oppressive as the society he has just left behind.
Forward-looking in his technological ideas, Twain was always entranced by gadgets, enabling the Yankee to establish some amenities in King Arthur's world not previously known to him. Though Twain is acerbic in his criticism of technology that is inhumanely developed and applied, he also celebrates the American virtue of self-reliant ingenuity in countering the pretensions of medieval monarchy. Not surprisingly, his previously receptive English readership was not warm toward this book, and American readers who preferred his lighter touch in Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were dismayed as well.
About the Author
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His humorous tales of human nature, especially The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), remain standard texts in high school and college literature classes. Twain was born and died in years in which Halley’s Comet passed by Earth: 1835 and 1910.
Table of Contents
Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY OF MARK TWAIN'S LIFE AND WORK
HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Preface
A Word of Explanation
The Tale of the Lost Land
Camelot
King Arthur's Court
Knights of the Table Round
Sir Dinadan the Humorist
An Inspiration
The Eclipse
Merlin's Tower
The Boss
The Tournament
Beginnings of Civilization
The Yankee in Search of Adventures
Slow Torture
Freemen!
"Defend Thee, Lord!"
Sandy's Tale
Morgan le Fay
A Royal Banquet
In the Queen's Dungeons
Knight-Errantry as a Trade
The Ogre's Castle
The Pilgrims
The Holy Fountain
Restoration of the Fountain
A Rival Magician
A Competitive Examination
The First Newspaper
The Yankee and the King Travel Incognito
Drilling the King
The Smallpox Hut
The Tragedy of the Manor House
Marco
Dowley's Humiliation
Sixth-Century Political Economy
The Yankee and the King Sold as Slaves
A Pitiful Incident
An Encounter in the Dark
An Awful Predicament
Sir Launcelot and Knights to the Rescue
The Yankee's Fight with the Knights
Three Years Later
The Interdict
War!
The Battle of the Sand Belt
A Postcript by Clarence
Final P.S. by M.T.
NOTES
INTERPRETIVE NOTES
CRITICAL EXCERPTS
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER