Pudd'nhead Wilson (Bantam Classics)

Book Description

At the beginning of Pudd'nhead Wilson a young slave woman, fearing for her infant's son's life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master's. From this rather simple premise Mark Twain fashioned one of his most entertaining, funny, yet biting novels. On its surface, Pudd'nhead Wilson possesses all the elements of an engrossing nineteenth-century mystery: reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, a suspenseful courtroom drama, and a surprising, unusual solution. Yet it is not a mystery novel. Seething with the undercurrents of antebellum southern culture, the book is a savage indictment in which the real criminal is society, and racial prejudice and slavery are the crimes. Written in 1894, Pudd'nhead Wilson glistens with characteristic Twain humor, with suspense, and with pointed irony: a gem among the author's later works.

Customer Reviews:

Typical Twain, but fun read .......2007-07-22

Twain's Puddn'head Wilson is typical of his other works in that we see many of the same exploits and devices--satire and witticisms, boys dressing up as girls, slave dialect and southern slang, mistaken identities. Perhaps this short novel goes out a little more so than others in that it not only is a comical portrayal of stereotypes and the problems that they cause, but it has elements of both drama and mystery as well.

The story begins with Puddn'head Wilson, a man named so because many of the people don't understand his eccentric ideals, coming to Dawson's Landing to establish his career as a lawyer. He has an unusual habit of collecting fingerprints, which most in the southern town don't give much credence to--however, this is great foreshadowing for the final climactic courtroom scene. Roxy, a slave, makes a decision to switch her baby with that of her master's in order to try to give her child a better station in life. After successfully doing this, many years pass without anyone suspecting what she has done. Thus, Chambers is actually Tom, and vice versa, and they go about this way in life.

One of the interesting aspects of the book is the title. Pudd'nhead Wilson comes to be the most important character by the novel's end, but he is not the focus of the book. Tom is the major focus, and we see him find out who his real mom is, as well as his real identity, his actual history. There are times when Tom appears to be on the verge of changing from an arrogant, self-centered person to someone better, but his "true" self always seems to get the better of him and he never makes that change. We can see that the way he treats his mother as well as Wilson.

Twain's point interposed in the storyline is the devastating effects slavery has on society. While he uses several scenes to highlight this, perhaps one of the most moving is Roxy's willingness to be sold "down the river" to help out Tom out of a jam, something that Tom doesn't even truly appreciate. This is a moment of complete and utter self-sacrifice; Tom's reaction to his mother's cries seemingly is parallel with society's indifference about the harshness of slavery.

Still, while Twain is able to make a point about slavery and take serious views on its ill effects, he is also able to maintain his humorous edge and then take the novel into an interesting direction--leading to a final murder mystery. In this scene, Wilson is able to use some of his fingerprinting tactics to successfully prove who the real murderer was.

This novel does have its problems, and seems a bit disproportioned at times. For instance, while we follow Tom throughout his early childhood and beginning adulthood, we never really follow Chambers, the one who he is switched with at the beginning. Also, there is only a scattering of focus on Roxy, Tom's mother, within the novel.

Over all, this is typical Twain, but maybe not with the same impact of Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. Still, this is a quick, fun read.

Using a murder mystery and a tale of mistaken identity to explore the question of racial identity .......2007-01-06

Pudd'nhead Wilson is classic Twain: it manages to be as fun and as funny as it is disturbing and bleak. The entertainment results from both the comedy inherent in mistaken identity and the straightforward detective story that frames the narrative. The tragedy arises from Twain's complicated treatment of social hypocrisy, slavery, racial identity, and the debate between the influences of one's heredity and one's environment.

The novel, like Twain's earlier "The Prince and the Pauper," features switched-at-birth boys: Tom, who is born to Judge Percy Driscoll, and Chambers, who is born to a slave named Roxy and is 1/32 black. Roxy exchanges the babies to keep hers from being "sold down the river," and the two change names--and races. They later become rivals when the new Tom lords his authority over the new Chambers. A second pair of boys, the dashing Luigi and Angelo, are former vaudevillian actors who arrive in town and become implicated in a murder. (In an early draft of the novel, the two were conjoined twins--and Twain didn't quite excise or revise all the relevant passages.) The amateur investigator and accidental detective, David "Puddn'nead" Wilson, is a lawyer who has become the town outcast and who pursues the mystery to expose the townsfolk's self-importance and self-deception.

If you're looking for a detective thriller, this one is a bit far-fetched. (There is a subplot involving Wilson's dabbling in the new "science" of fingerprint identification that is fascinating.) But the plot is incidental to Twain's humor and, especially, his themes.

There has been on ongoing debate between critics of this book that will never be resolved: between readers who condemn Twain, for implying that Tom's wickedness and indolence result because of his genetic make-up (i.e., because he was "born" black), and readers who defend Twain, who feel that he was arguing that Tom's faults resulted from his family and the society (i.e., because he was "raised" white). Similarly, Roxy's portrayal is alternately troubling (she is devious, wicked, and mad) and sympathetic (she is quite intelligent and will do anything for her child). I tend to side with those who defend Twain, because it's clear that Twain doesn't much care for the traditions and principles of (white) society, which is why an outcast like Wilson must become the hero. But I also feel that Twain, deliberately choosing ambiguity over pedantry, was investigating the nature versus nurture debate without definitively answering the question--and the fact that readers seem split on the verdict hints to me that he succeeded. Twain dares to ask the question: What is race, and does it really exist?

In spite of its occasional profundity, the novel as a whole, which is quite short, is really an exercise in absurdity that perhaps only Twain could make work. (Most young readers who know Twain through his early works won't cotton on to "Pudd'nhead Wilson.") The book has an unfinished, first-draft feel, and it feels almost patched together from various stories and plots (which it is). But fans of Twain's other works would be making a mistake not to read it.

Too Short .......2006-08-25

"Pudd'nhead Wilson" is a very good book. The title character is an intelligent man who, on the first day he enters into Dawson's Creek utters a wry remark that is immediately taken to be a foolish remark by those others less witty. He is labeled a "pudd'nhead" and thereafter must live with the nickname, for having once attached the name the townspeople loath to remove it. It is there, as far as the town is concerned, forever.

In the beginning of the book, a black mother (just one/sixteenth black)switches her white-appearing baby with a true white baby, thus rescuing her son from slavery (but not from himself). From that act all other ramifications in the novel arise.

Wilson (Pudd'nhad) has an unusual hobby, that is he collects fingerprints. Why? Just because. And here is one problem with the novel. Wilson's hobby clearly exists as a writer's plot device, as the reader will discover by book's end.

Another fault is the length of the book. It is short, but with a plot demanding more length. It is a book that needed to be more "fleshed out" by its author in my opinion. Still, Twain's cleverness and wit are on ample display and the writing is surprisingly modern in style. While the book has faults it is book more worth reading than many a novel written today.

"A Cauliflower Is A Cabbage With A College Education" .......2005-11-18

Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson (1854) is a short, episodic novel which continuously promises to flower into a small work of genius but never succeeds. Densely packed with socially explosive themes and literary devices--including two apparent sets of twins, switched identities, transvestite episodes, an emotionally biased stepparent, a scheming heir, a dramatic court room scene, and a mysterious murder--the book is too obviously calculated throughout, and thus, despite moments of genuine power, reads like the awkward concoction that it is. Since Pudd'nhead Wilson is essentially plot-driven, Twain's frequent apparent lack of confidence in his narrative doubly dilutes the novel's forward momentum, leaving the reader uncomfortably aware of the author's somewhat forced creative decisions. Even locally misunderstood lawyer Pudd'nhead Wilson himself--a secondary character--never really exists as a three dimensional figure and seems present throughout only to serve as a deus ex machina at the story's conclusion.

All of which is a shame, since Pudd'nhead Wilson, in terms of its themes, had the potential to be Twain's greatest work. The novel is the story of Roxana, a slave who, being "only one-sixteenth black," can pass for white and who switches her own light-skinned child with the child of her master while both are in infancy, thus hoping to spare him the horrible fate of "being sold down the river." But Roxana's child, now known as "Tom" and raised as the future lord of the manor, becomes a bully, an ingrate, and a secret criminal, while the real heir, raised without any advantages as a slave and called "Chambre," merely fulfills his role as an illiterate piece of property.

The novel's most significant problem is also its most obvious one. Pudd'nhead Wilson would have been far more compelling had Twain not allowed the text to take the overt position that blacks raised as whites will turn out to be as shiftless, loafing, and inherently worthless as the prejudices of the era defined them to be. This is especially true since "Chambre," the genuine white heir, remains offstage for most of the novel and thus his lack of development as a human being under the slave system is never explored.

Nothing hammers Twain's error of judgement home as much as the fact that the initially sympathetic Roxana develops into a morally compromised individual as the story proceeds, not because it is essentially believable for her to become so, but because Twain needs her to falter to further his rather cumbersome plot. Ultimately, that Roxana is only "only one-sixteenth black" and "Tom" "thirty-one parts white" and both thus essentially caucasian, is neither here nor there, since Twain repeatedly reinforces the notions of the era that both remain "negroes" regardless.

Though only 120 pages long, the meandering Pudd'nhead Wilson reads like a book twice that length, and, as its audience will begin to suspect as the narrative progresses, the story's climax is pat and predictable. Twain might have succeeded at leaving his racially charged themes deliciously ambiguous and prismatic, but simply does not. Few things are sadder than a work of art that attempts to be clever and fails to be, of Pudd'nhead Wilson is an fine example.

The point?.......2005-07-23

I had to get this book for summer reading. As usual it is about racism, well sort of. The book is about a black lady that looks white and switches two babies (on black one white) that look almost identicle. There are numerous conversations that are in what you would call "ebonics" nowadays. It took some getting used to but it was annoying at first. The book had nothing to do with Pudd'nhead Wilson til the last two chapters. I was pretty dissappointed in that. The title should have been like "Slave babies switched at birth" or something that would have fit the book a little better. Overall, it was a decent story, nice and short as well. the last chapter is pretty good if you like that courtroom solving crimes stuff. If you need a book just because you are bored or something, this book would be a good choice. It is fairly easy to read, i don't know if you parents would want your kids reading it, it uses the "N" word frequently. The book wasn't what i expected but it was one of the best summer reading books i've ever read.

Mark Twain : Mississippi Writings : Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson (Library of America)

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Puddin' head Wilson: A Brief Review
Great edition
Wonderful book, wonderful series
A Grand View of A Grandeur
ACCESSIBLE TWAIN IN A HANDSOME BOOK

Mark Twain : Mississippi Writings : Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson (Library of America)
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0940450070

Book Description

Here for the first time in one volume are the most famous and characteristic of Mark Twain's works. Through each of them runs the powerful and majestic Mississippi. The river represented for Twain the complex and contradictory possibilities in his own and the nation's life: the place where civilization's comforts meet the violence and promise of freedom of the frontier. It was the place, too, where Twain's youthful innocence confronted the grim reality of slavery. The nostalgic re-creation of childhood in "Tom Sawyer"--"simply a hymn put into prose form to give it a worldly air," said Twain--and the richly anecdotal memoir of his days as a riverboat pilot in "Life on the Mississippi" give way to the realism and often dark comedy of "Huckleberry Finn" and the troubled exploration of slavery in his mystery, "Pudd'nhead Wilson." Together, these four books trace the central trajectory of his life and career, and they can be read as a single masterpiece.

Customer Reviews:

Puddin' head Wilson: A Brief Review.......2004-01-17

One of the most entertaining books I have read in a long time. Truly, "a page turner". Enlightening insight into southern society in smalltown Missouri during the 1840's.

Great edition.......2003-11-04

I doubt that anyone reading these reviews is trying to decide whether or not they will enjoy reading the stories in this volume - most likely they've read them already and want to know if this is an edition worth buying. This is definitely worth buying. The printing is crisp. The paper is lightweight, smooth-surfaced, and acid-free; over 1100 pages are only 1 and 1/8 inches thick. The dimensions are perfect. The binding appears to be strong yet limber - the book opens easily with good visualization of all margins. Library of America, the publishers, seems dedicated not only to preserving American writings, but doing so with style. I plan to put more of their books on my wish list - Melville and Hawthorne perhaps. My only regret is that I already own the complete writing of Poe from another publisher.

Wonderful book, wonderful series.......2002-06-08

If pressed to mention a series of books I love more than all others, I would have to cite Library of America; this is not because I am a fan of stictly American literature, but because I have never seen a series so dedicated--and so good at--a mission of preserving and presenting a body of literature of such greatness in such a worthy manner. Perhaps some day there will be a Library of Russia, Library of France, Library of England, etc.

Twain is a delight and underrated by modern critics; here lies a good collection of some of his fine works. Especially good are Life on the Mississippi and Pudd'nhead Wilson, along with the indesposable Huckleberry Finn. Also contained is Tom Sawyer, which I cannot praise, but I cannot deny its position as a classic and its deservence to be included in this volume.

A Grand View of A Grandeur.......2002-01-29

Once they were absolute rulers - laws made to meet their needs, unstinting respect their due, their commands obeyed without hesitation or reluctance. They are vanished today, the last of their lineage in tourist boats, unremarked, nearly unremembered. Nearly two centuries ago, the Mississippi steamboat pilot was a legendary figure. Mark Twain conveys us to that time and environment in one of his finest writings. Life On the Mississippi is a superb descriptive achievement in portraying the river scene , but also conveys vivid images of the people living on and along it. It's an outstanding example of painting with both a broad brush and enhancing with fine detail.

Beginning with a history of European "discovery" and exploration of this mighty stream, Twain moves us into his own history as a "cub" pilot. Perhaps no-one before or since has so effectively exposed what it meant to "tackle the river" in learning to safely man the wheel of a river steamer. From his first astonishment at discovering he must "get a notebook and write down" the names of all the points, landmarks, snags and "crossings" through the realization that most of that information would change before his next trip, he comes to understand that a pilot must "know the river" with full dedication. As we follow him through the process he introduces us to the river's wonders and the people it supports. He explains the ranking of pilots, steamboat captains, mates and "hands." None of his observations are boring, from the most mundane river condition to dramatic events such as boiler explosions.

Those fearing that Twain's information may be "outdated" may take heart. Much of the book views his early days on the river from the vantage point of thirty years later. He is reminiscing, but Twain's excellent style brings us with him into each memory. Our feelings readily align with his as he guides us. The latter part of the book is a collection of images of the river valley in the latter part of the 19th Century as Twain revisits the river after a long absence. The only real distinction, apart from the automobile, which did for the railroad what the latter did to the steamboat, are the statistics of agriculture and industry. His descriptions of towns, villages and cities differ little from what we might encounter duplicating his journey.

During this pilgrimage, Twain brings in numerous anecdotal episodes to further sparkle his descriptive and historical accounts. Although all are entertaining at one level or another, several stand out as representatives of Twain's inventive genius. Ritter's Narrative is among the grimmest of Twain's essays in any of his publications. It's a story of a long-term quest for vengeance with a bizarre outcome. A far lighter note is struck with the story of a sleepwalking steamboat pilot. An account of the pilots organizing a "protective association" is told with light humour, not quite obscuring the serious nature of its intent.

In all, no matter that this book's focus lies in a period stretching back nearly two centuries, the writing is vigorous enough to capture today's readers. The history is related with Twain's always lively skill, something as mundane as a sunset is imparted with his special verve. This book can be taken up repeatedly; for reminders of a lost era, for an examination of values or, the best reason of all, for a prime example of what North America's greatest writer could produce in his passion for narrative.

ACCESSIBLE TWAIN IN A HANDSOME BOOK.......2001-09-01

This is the kind of book reserved for the word "volume" and by that I mean it carries all the weight of Twain's most accessible works. All of the Library of America books carry this weight but this was one of the first and deservedly so. I'm reviewing this book not just on its contents but on its sheer style and scholarly editing, its fitness in the hand (or lap), the way it will look on your bookshelf and the 10-point Linotron Galliard printing that makes the very act of reading much easier.
Now, the contents cannot be less magnificent as the river all these writings have in common. Funny, wise and as much a part of 19th century American history as you'll find anywhere, these are great examples of the best American writing in one "volume" by one of the world's most recognized authors. No self-respecting booklover should be without it.

Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics)

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Perhaps Twain's Best...
Not worth the effort
A Great Read
Memorable
A neglected American masterpiece

Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics)
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0812966228
Release Date: 2002-10-08

Book Description

Featuring the brilliantly drawn Roxanna, a mulatto slave who suffers dire consequences after switching her infant son with her master’s baby, and the clever Pudd’nhead Wilson, an ostracized small-town lawyer, Twain’s darkly comic masterpiece is a provocative exploration of slavery and miscegenation. Leslie A. Fiedler described the novel as “half melodramatic detective story, half bleak tragedy,” noting that “morally, it is one of the most honest books in our literature.” Those Extraordinary Twins, the slapstick story that evolved into Pudd’nhead Wilson, provides a fascinating view of the author’s process.

The text for this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the 1894 first American edition.

Customer Reviews:

Perhaps Twain's Best..........2007-05-01

Given the brevity of this book, I feel a little absurd claiming it as my favorite work by Twain, but it is indeed my new favorite, even over Huckleberry Finn (which is really saying something).
The ideas concerning race are deeply involved and the question about how much of our "make up" is inherent and how much is indoctrinated is one that occurs over and over again.
Some claim this to be a racist text, but it seems to me that Twain is simply pointing out the absurdities of racism and slavery. Furthermore, his depiction of Roxy, a black slave mother with very white skin, is a serious one. This novel and its characters, while often times coming off as very humorous, deserve a serious perusal.
I could not put this one down and read it virtually cover to cover. Even the epigraphs that head every chapter are amazing.
Read this one! If you like Twain, you will love this. Guaranteed.
Also, I strongly recommend the Modern Library edition of this book, because, unlike some other editions, it includes "Those Extraordinary Twins." The latter work is the idea from which "Pudd'nhead Wilson" springs.

Not worth the effort.......2005-06-26

Previous reviews referred to this Twain novel as "great," "superb," and a "masterpiece." Even conceeding there is no accounting for tastes, I truly have to wonder if I read the same book. The story development is based on child-like maturity and imagination. The pace is breathtakingly slow, especially for a Twain novel, and finally, both the slave talk jargon and the events left this reader not really wanting to continue reading.

It took me about 9 months to read this book, not because I'm that slow of a reader, but because I had to make myself read it. I'm going through a law and literature reading list and this was near the top of the list. I hope the rest are much better. Anyway, I'll hit on a couple of examples (non-spoiler) that will illustrate my points above.

The title character is given his name due to an idiotic remark made one day in town. He is a lawyer who opens up his practice in the small Missouri town, but finds that due to his remark, he can't find legal clients. So, he finds other work and indulges himself in his hobby, that of taking fingerprints. The remak he made in town is obviously stupid, but from a literary standpoint, the events unfold as if they were written by a 9 year old, with a 9 year old's intelligence and imagination. Its sort of like listening to elementary aged kids joke around and then writing those jokes down as adult authored humor. It doesn't work.

While others might see it as a plus, I find Twain's thick accented slave character dialog increadibly hard to read and very disconcerting. It would be one thing if it were in bits and pieces, but in this case, there is at least one chapter where the majority of the dialog is in this jibberish. It could have been written another way that kept the spirit of the characters alive.

The ending was fairly swift and not terribly dramactic, at least to me. I can forgive Twain for both ignoring legal details and obviously writing a specific legal drama in an age a century or more before certain aspects of the justice system were even really well developed. However, putting all that aside, the final sequence was not well researched or thought out. Logical reasoning steps were skipped that even the novice legal observer could feel unfulfilled.

I don't recommend the book unless you are reading it for a list like I am.

A Great Read.......2003-05-18

I read Puddnhead Wilson in an English Class in college. It was the first book that I had the chance to read by Mark Twain and thought the characters in the story as humorous. I would highly recommend to anyone who hasn't had the chance to read this book to give it a try and enjoy reading about the lives of Twain's characters.

Memorable.......2002-04-25

Puddnhead Wilson is a very short book that can bear repeated reading. Not because it is a great literary work (it is) or because it is so important (which it is), but because in it Mark Twain exposes himself -- his nostalgia, his bitterness, his resignation, and his hope for his own life and for post-Civil War America with brutal frankness, and yet humorous approachability.

The novel may be called "Puddnhead Wilson" but the most memorable character is a highly intelligent slave woman named Roxana. Through Roxana and the rest of the townspeople living in a pre-Civil War Missouri, we find some of Mark Twain's most oft-quoted statements among biting characterizations of the American mentality.

I cannot recommend this little book enough. It has its weaknesses (so many critical essays have been written about them that it's unnecessary to discuss them here) but they are really minor and certainly do not detract from the sheer enjoyment and contemplation that it gives the reader. Not to mention that the apologetic forwards to both Puddnhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins are brilliant short letters from Twain on writing.

I cannot speak about Those Extraordinary Twins because I've never been able to get into it, or read past the first chapter. It's extremely odd, being about a circus freak -- siamese twins joined at the hip -- with each side having the complete opposite philosophy and constitution than the other. That is, one side drinks alcohol and doesn't feel affected while the other side gets drunk; each side has different taste in clothing; etc.

A neglected American masterpiece.......2000-10-11

It seems like hardly anybody reads Mark Twain anymore, which is a shame, because he has so much to say about American society and human nature. "Pudd'nhead Wilson" is unquestionably one of his greatest books, maybe even his best. It's at least the equal of "Huckleberry Finn," which I had the good fortune to read with a superb high school English teacher in 1975, a year before her department banned it from the school's curriculum because of its supposedly racist portrayal of Jim.

"Pudd'nhead Wilson" manages to be a social satire, a murder mystery, a compelling commentary on race and racism, a brief against slavery, a courtroom drama, and a lifelike portrait of a particular time and place in American history, all packed into a short novel of some 170 pages. The story moves along quickly, hilarious in places and appalling in others. It's hard to understand why this easy-to-follow, entertaining and instructive novel isn't more widely read and appreciated, especially given the importance of race as a topic for thought, discussion and historical inquiry in the United States.

"Pudd'nhead Wilson" is set in a small Mississippi River town in the slave state of Missouri in 1830-1853. The critical event of the story occurs early on, when Roxy, a slave woman caring for two infant boys of exactly the same age, one her son and the other the son of one of the leading citizens of the town, secretly switches their identities. This deception is possible because her son is only 1/32 African-American and appears white (his father is in fact another leading citizen), yet by custom if not by law, the boy is a slave. The deception results in Roxy's son growing up in privileged circumstances, treating blacks with contempt, having the other boy as his personal slave, and attending Yale; yet the son, despite having all the advantages, develops no moral grounding whatsoever, and spends much of his adult life stealing, drinking and gambling. At one point, aware of his true identity but desperately needing money, he sells his own mother "down the river," into a more southerly cotton-growing region where the overseers are said to be especially cruel.

Twain gives us fewer details about the fate of the boy who in reality is all white, but we are made to understand that the boy's upbringing is typical of male slaves: he grows up with violence and degradation, illiterate, and with few skills either for making a living or existing in white society. This proves to be a cruel fate when the deception is exposed. Though he eventually comes into a substantial inheritance, he is never comfortable with or accepted by the town's respectable citizens, yet the prevailing racial code prohibits him from associating too closely with the blacks with whom he grew up.

Pudd'nhead Wilson, a lawyer, exposes the deception during a murder trial. Wilson, the town oddball, is an amateur fingerprinter, and it turns out that he kept the fingerprints he took of the boys before their switch, and is able to prove both their true identities and the identity of the killer. Wilson is the only halfway honorable character in the book; most of the rest, black and white, are exposed as dishonest, selfish and corrupt.

Book Description

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED

BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP

Mark Twain's darkly comic short classic set in the antebellum South stands as a literary condemnation of slavery and racial inequality.

EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:

• A concise introduction that gives readers 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 help readers form their 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

Customer Reviews:

Forget Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn..........2006-08-24

Huckleberry who?? "Pudd'nhead Wilson" is Mark Twain's best novel. Forget about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and the Connecticut Yankee and those lazy riverboat days on the Mississippi. This is the book that people should think of when they think of Twain. It's a masterpiece of American comedy, as well as a pointed satire of racism and American slavery and an entry in the nature-nurture debate. This is Twain at his best--even better, in my opinion, than the late novella "The Mysterious Stranger."

Pudd'Nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins: Authoritative Texts, Textual Introduction and Tables of Variants Criticism (A Norton Critical)

Average customer rating:

A Three Ring Circus

Pudd'Nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins: Authoritative Texts, Textual Introduction and Tables of Variants Criticism (A Norton Critical)
Mark Twain , and Sidney E. Berger
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393950271

Customer Reviews:

A Three Ring Circus.......2000-10-15

Twain's novel Pudd'nhead Wilson can seem like an enigma at first, since it is a story about slavery written almost forty years after the end of the Civil War. Certainly race was still a pressing contemporary issue for Twain at the time: by 1893 Reconstruction had failed and race relations in the United States were a mess. Although a black man no longer had to fear being sold "down the river" as Roxy and Chambers do, extreme forms of violence were a distinct possibility. Part of the point here is that although the institutions surrounding race may have changed since 1850, the fundamental problems, even by 1893, had not. By featuring characters who are racially indeterminate--that is, characters who can "pass" or who are not immediately identifiable as black--Twain confuses the issue still further. When slavery was still legal, an individual's racial profile mattered on a concrete level: someone who is one-thirtysecondth black,like Chambers, could be owned as a slave, while someone with no known black ancestry could not. Racial identity, by the 1890's, had become a much more nebulous concept. Broader issues of identity are a compelling problem in this novel. Although this is by no means a carefully structured and polished piece of literature, Twain's multiple plots and thrown- together style do serve to inform a central set of issues, with the twins, Pudd'nhead, and Tom and Chambers all serving as variations on a theme. The coexistence of many characters and many localized plots mirrors the novel's setting. In its vacillation between the tiny town of Dawson's Landing and the metropolis of St. Louis, and in the centralized presence of the Mississippi River, with its possibilities for endless mobility, the novel offers both hope and despair: the world is too big a place for everyone to be known absolutely to their neighbors, yet one also has the ability to start over in a new place.

The idea of being able to start over is continuously interrogated in American literature. Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, which appeared almost exactly one hundred years before Pudd'nhead Wilson, sketched out the ideals of self-determination and personal identity in American culture: a man can become whatever he wants, no matter what his background, as long as he has a plan and the work ethic to realize it. Echoes of Franklin can be seen in the eccentric, scientifically-minded Pudd'nhead Wilson, whose writings mirror Franklin's and whose careful analysis and re-categorization of the world around him is also reminiscent of the American icon. Pudd'nhead's self-realizations, though, are dark and socially unsuccessful. Twain's characters live in an America where social mores are largely fixed and one's success depends not on determination but on fitting into a pre-existing public space.

Twain, like Franklin, was a celebrated public figure, immediately recognizable as a collection of carefully developed mannerisms and trademark items. Like Judge Driscoll in this novel, Twain somehow found himself high placed enough in society so as not to be bound by its rules. In Pudd'nhead Wilson, though, Twain looks at those who avoid constraints of reputation and public opinion by being so far beneath society as to be almost irrelevant. He also looks at those who, like the twins, get caught in the middle, in a mire of shifting opinions and speculations. The "plot" of this novel, if it can be said to have one, is a detective story, in which a series of identities--the judge's murderer, "Tom," "Chambers"--must be sorted out. This structure highlights the problem of identity and one's ability to determine one's own identity. The solution to the set of mysteries, though, is an incomplete and bleak one, in which determinations about identities have been made but the assigned identities do not correspond to viable positions in society. The seemingly objective scientific methods espoused by Pudd'nhead may have provided more "truthful" answers than public opinion, but they have not helped to better society. In the rapidly changing American culture of the 1890s, where race, celebrity, and publicity were confounding deeply ingrained cultural notions of self-determination, the depopulated ending of Pudd'nhead Wilson is a pessimistic assessment of one's ability to control one's identity. Twain's novel moves us from Franklin's comic world of possibility to a place where self- determination is Twain, like Franklin, was a celebrated public figure, immediately recognizable as a collection of carefully developed mannerisms and trademark items. Like Judge Driscoll in this novel, Twain somehow found himself high placed enough in society so as not to be bound by its rules. In Pudd'nhead Wilson, though, Twain looks at those who avoid constraints of reputation and public opinion by being so far beneath society as to be almost irrelevant. He also looks at those who,

like the twins, get caught in the middle, in a mire of shifting opinions and speculations. The "plot" of this novel, if it can be said to have one, is a detective story, in which a series of identities--the judge's murderer, "Tom," "Chambers"--must be sorted out. This structure highlights the problem of identity and one's ability to determine one's own identity. The solution to the set of mysteries, though, is an incomplete and bleak one, in which determinations about

identities have been made but the assigned identities do not correspond to viable positions in society. The seemingly objective scientific methods espoused by Pudd'nhead may have provided more "truthful" answers than public opinion, but they have not helped to better society. In the rapidly changing American culture of the 1890s, where race, celebrity, and publicity were confounding deeply ingrained cultural notions of self-determination, the depopulated ending of Pudd'nhead Wilson is a pessimistic assessment of one's ability to control one's identity. Twain's novel moves us from Franklin's comic world of possibility to a place where self- determination is accompanied by tragic overtones, a place reminiscent of the world of another, later American novel about a self-made man that does not end well: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

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The Complete Novels of Mark Twain ( Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, the Gilded Age, the American Claimant, Pudd'nhead Wilson, the Prince and the Pauper, Those Extra-ordinary Twins) 5 Volume Set

Manufacturer: Nelson Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book
ASIN: B000E3LPUM

Product Description

5 Volume set of Mark Twains Novels

Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: Race, Conflict and Culture

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Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: Race, Conflict and Culture
Susan Gillman
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

This collection seeks to place Pudd’nhead Wilsonâa neglected, textually fragmented work of Mark Twain’sâin the context of contemporary critical approaches to literary studies. The editors’ introduction argues the virtues of using Pudd’nhead Wilson as a teaching text, a case study in many of the issues presently occupying literary criticism: issues of history and the uses of history, of canon formation, of textual problematics, and finally of race, class, and gender.
In a variety of ways the essays build arguments out of, not in spite of, the anomalies, inconsistencies, and dead ends in the text itself. Such wrinkles and gaps, the authors find, are the symptoms of an inconclusive, even evasive, but culturally illuminating struggle to confront and resolve difficult questions bearing on race and sex. Such fresh, intellectually enriching perspectives on the novel arise directly from the broad-based interdisciplinary foundations provided by the participating scholars. Drawing on a wide variety of critical methodologies, the essays place the novel in ways that illuminate the world in which it was produced and that further promise to stimulate further study.

Contributors. Michael Cowan, James M. Cox, Susan Gillman, Myra Jehlen, Wilson Carey McWilliams, George E. Marcus, Carolyn Porter, Forrest Robinson, Michael Rogin, John Carlos Rowe, John Schaar, Eric Sundquist

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins (1894) (Oxford Mark Twain)

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A look inside Twain's writing method

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins (1894) (Oxford Mark Twain)
Mark Twain , and David Lionel Smith
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Widely acknowledged as the greatest of his later works, IThe Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, is Twain's most searingly ironic vision of race in America. Set in a town not unlike the Hannibal of Twain's youth, the book began life as a slapstick comedy about Siamese twins. But "it changed from a farce to a tragedy," Twain tells us, in the course of his writing, and the result was one of the most profound meditations on race and identity an American writer has produced. The voice that dominates this tale is that of Roxana, a light-skinned slave desperate to keep her child from being sold down the river, who switches him in the cradle with the child of her master. Roxana, Twain's most complex and fully-realized adult female character, is a compelling tragic heroine; the plot she sets in motion is daring, risky, and totally riveting. Murder and mayhem precede a courtroom scene that ranks as one of the most memorable in American literature. This conflicted, provocative, richly satirical novel confronts head-on the enigma of what makes us who we are.

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A look inside Twain's writing method.......2001-10-12

The main portion of the book is "Puddnhead Wilson", but Twain writes a fascinating intro to "Those Extraordinary Twins" to explain how he started writing one book and ended up with the other. The twins were originally conjoined (Siamese), and were the main characters. The side characters of Tom and Roxy developed into main characters in an entirely different story. what you end up with is a tragedy and a comedy, that occur around the same time, in the same town, with most of the same characters. Its amazing how much a few little twists change everything.

$The Tragedy of Pudd\'nhead Wilson (Large Print Edition)$
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The Tragedy of Pudd\'nhead Wilson (Large Print Edition)
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: BiblioBazaar
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

A person who is ignorant of legal matters is always liable to make mistakes when he tries to photograph a court scene with his pen; and so I was not willing to let the law chapters in this book go to press without first subjecting them to rigid and exhausting revision and correction by a trained barrister—if that is what they are called.

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Pudd'nhead Wilson
Mark Twain
Manufacturer: Alcazar AudioWorks of Burlingame California
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

General | Books on CD | Audiobooks | Formats | Books
ASIN: 0974680680

Product Description

Another of Mark Twain's best selling yarns of skullduggery and mischief. Set in the deep South, Pudd'nhead Wilson is the central character as an attorney who solves a murder mystery and lays bare the wicked deeds of a larger than life ensemble of personalities in his own wry and peculiar way. Unabridged....Adapted for cast read Narrated by Bobbie Frohman with full supporting cast Suggested ages: Adult

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