Summary
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.
Mark Twain was born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He worked as a printer, and then became a steamboat pilot. He traveled throughout the West, writing humorous sketches for newspapers. In 1865, he wrote the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which was very well received. He then began a career as a humorous travel writer and lecturer, publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869, Roughing It in 1872, and, Gilded Age in 1873, which was co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner. His best-known works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mississippi Writing: Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910.
(Bowker Author Biography)
