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  • Published: 4 December 2007
  • ISBN: 9780451530745
  • Imprint: Signet
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $12.99

Pudd'nhead Wilson




Twain's later work, exploring race and identity in the Deep South

Mark Twain takes a hard look at the consequences of slavery in America in this classic satire. 

Set in a town on the Mississippi during the pre-Civil War era, Pudd’nhead Wilson tackles the seminal American issue of slavery in a tragicomedy of switched identities. What happens when a child born free and a child born a slave change places?  The result is a biting social commentary with enduring relevance, and a good old-fashioned murder mystery. It also introduces one of Twain’s favorite characters: Pudd’nhead Wilson, an intellectual with a penchant for amateur sleuthing. F.R. Leavis proclaimed this novel “the masterly work of a great writer.”

With an Introduction by Louis Budd

  • Published: 4 December 2007
  • ISBN: 9780451530745
  • Imprint: Signet
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $12.99

About the author

Mark Twain

Mark Twain's real name was Sam Clemens, and he was born in 1835 in a small town on the Mississippi, one of seven children. He smoked cigars at the age of eight, and aged nine he stowed away on a steamboat. He left school at 11 and worked at a grocery store, a bookstore, a blacksmith's and a newspaper, where he was allowed to write his own stories (not all of them true). He then worked on a steamboat, where he got the name 'Mark Twain' (from the call given by the boat's pilot when their boat is in safe waters). Eventually he turned to journalism again, travelled round the world, and began writing books which became very popular. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are his most famous novels. He poured the money he earned from writing into new business ventures and crazy inventions, such as a clamp to stop babies throwing off their bed covers, a new boardgame, and a hand grenade full of extinguishing liquid to throw on a fire. With his shock of white hair and trademark white suit Mark Twain became the most famous American writer in the world. He died in 1910.

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