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Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) is a novel by American writer Mark Twain. Its central intrigue revolves around two boys-one, born into slavery, with 1/32 black ancestry; the other, white, born to be the master of the house. The two boys, who look similar, are switched at infancy. Each grows into the other's social role. The story was serialized in The Century Magazine (1893–4), before being published as a novel in 1894. The setting is the fictional Missouri frontier town of Dawson's Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the 19th century. David Wilson, a young lawyer, moves to town and a clever remark of his is misunderstood, which causes locals to brand him a "pudd'nhead" (nitwit). His hobby of collecting fingerprints does not raise his standing in the eyes of the townsfolk, who consider him to be eccentric and do not frequent his law practice. "Pudd'nhead" Wilson is left in the background as the focus shifts to the slave Roxy, her son, and the family they serve. Roxy is one-sixteenth black and majority white, and her son Valet de Chambre (referred to as "Chambers") is 1/32 black. Roxy is principally charged with caring for her inattentive master's infant son Tom Driscoll, who is the same age as her own son. After fellow slaves are caught stealing and are nearly sold "down the river" to a master in the Deep South, Roxy fears for her son and herself. She considers killing her boy and herself, but decides to switch Chambers and Tom in their cribs to give her son a life of freedom and privilege. The narrative moves forward two decades. Tom Driscoll (formerly Valet de Chambre), has been raised to believe that he is white and has become a spoiled aristocrat. He is a selfish and dissolute young man. Tom's father has died and granted Roxy her freedom in his will. She worked for a time on river boats, and saved money for her retirement. When she finally is able to retire, she discovers that her bank has failed and all of her savings are gone. She returns to Dawson's Landing to ask for money from Tom.
Pudd'nhead Wins His Name.
Tell the truth or trump-but get the trick.-Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
The scene of this chronicle is the town of Dawson's Landing, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, half a day's journey, per steamboat, below St. Louis.
In 1830 it was a snug little collection of modest one- and two-story frame dwellings whose whitewashed exteriors were almost concealed from sight by climbing tangles of rose-vines, honeysuckles, and morning-glories. Each of these pretty homes had a garden in front fenced with white palings and opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds, touch-me-nots, prince's-feathers and other old-fashioned flowers; while on the window-sills of the houses stood wooden boxes containing moss-rose plants and terra-cotta pots in which grew a breed of geranium whose spread of intensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint of the rose-clad house-front like an explosion of flame. When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there-in sunny weather-stretched at full length, asleep and blissful, with her furry belly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was complete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is infallible. A home without a cat-and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat-may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?
All along the streets, on both sides, at the outer edge of the brick sidewalks, stood locust-trees with trunks protected by wooden boxing, and these furnished shade for summer and a sweet fragrance in spring when the clusters of buds came forth. The main street, one block back from the river, and running parallel with it, was the sole business street. It was six blocks long, and in each block two or three brick stores three stories high towered above interjected bunches of little frame shops. Swinging signs creaked in the wind, the street's whole length. The candy-striped pole which indicates nobility proud and ancient along the palace-bordered canals of Venice, indicated merely the humble barber shop along the main street of Dawson's Landing. On a chief corner stood a lofty unpainted pole wreathed from top to bottom with tin pots and pans and cups, the chief tinmonger's noisy notice to the world (when the wind blew) that his shop was on hand for business at that corner.
The hamlet's front was washed by the clear waters of the great river; its body stretched itself rearward up a gentle incline; its most rearward border fringed itself out and scattered its houses about the base-line of the hills; the hills rose high, inclosing the town in a half-moon curve, clothed with forests from foot to summit.
Steamboats passed up and down every hour or so. Those belonging to the little Cairo line and the little Memphis line always stopped; the big Orleans liners stopped for hails only, or to land passengers or freight; and this was the case also with the great flotilla of "transients." These latter came out of a dozen rivers-the Illinois, the Missouri, the Upper Mississippi, the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Tennessee, the Red River, the White River, and so on; and were bound every whither and stocked with every imaginable comfort or necessity which the Mississippi's communities could want, from the frosty Falls of St. Anthony down through nine climates to torrid New Orleans.
Dawson's Landing was a slaveholding town, with a rich slave-worked grain and pork country back of it. The town was sleepy and comfortable and contented. It was fifty years old, and was growing slowly-very slowly, in fact, but still it was growing.
The chief citizen was York Leicester Driscoll, about forty years old, judge of the county court. He was very proud of his old Virginian ancestry, and in his hospitalities and his rather formal and stately manners he kept up its traditions. He was fine and just and generous. To be a gentleman-a gentleman without stain or blemish-was his only religion, and to it he was always faithful. He was respected, esteemed and beloved by all the community. He was well off, and was gradually adding to his store. He and his wife were very nearly happy, but not quite, for they had no children. The longing for the treasure of a child had grown stronger and stronger as the years slipped away, but the blessing never came-and was never to come.
With this pair lived the Judge's widowed sister, Mrs. Rachel Pratt, and she also was childless-childless, and sorrowful for that reason, and not to be comforted. The women were good and commonplace people, and did their duty and had their reward in clear consciences and the community's approbation. They were Presbyterians, the Judge was a free-thinker.
Pembroke Howard, lawyer and bachelor, aged about forty, was another old Virginian grandee with proved descent from the First Families. He was a fine, brave, majestic creature, a gentleman according to the nicest requirements of the Virginia rule, a devoted Presbyterian, an authority on the "code," and a man always courteously ready to stand up before you in the field if any act or word of his had seemed doubtful or suspicious to you, and explain it with any weapon you might prefer from brad-awls to artillery. He was very popular with the people, and was the Judge's dearest friend.
Then there was Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex, another F. F. V. of formidable caliber-however, with him we have no concern.
Percy Northumberland Driscoll, brother to the Judge, and younger than he by five years, was a married man, and had had children around his hearthstone; but they were attacked in detail by measles, croup and scarlet fever, and this had given the doctor a chance with his effective antediluvian methods; so the cradles were empty. He was a prosperous man, with a good head for speculations, and his fortune was growing. On the 1st of February, 1830, two boy babes were born in his house: one to him, the other to one of his slave girls, Roxana by name. Roxana was twenty years old. She was up and around the same day, with her hands full, for she was tending both babies.
Mrs. Percy Driscoll died within the week. Roxy remained in charge of the children. She had her own way, for Mr. Driscoll soon absorbed himself in his speculations and left her to her own devices.
In that same month of February, Dawson's Landing gained a new citizen. This was Mr. David Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch parentage. He had wandered to this remote region from his birthplace in the interior of the State of New York, to seek his fortune. He was twenty-five years old, college-bred, and had finished a post-college course in an Eastern law school a couple of years before.
He was a homely, freckled, sandy-haired young fellow, with an intelligent blue eye that had frankness and comradeship in it and a covert twinkle of a pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate remark of his, he would no doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson's Landing. But he made his fatal remark the first day he spent in the village, and it "gaged" him. He had just made the acquaintance of a group of citizens when an invisible dog began to yelp and snarl and howl and make himself very comprehensively disagreeable, whereupon young Wilson said, much as one who is thinking aloud-
"I wish I owned half of that dog."
"Why?" somebody asked.
"Because I would kill my half."
The group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but found no light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away from him as from something uncanny, and went into privacy to discuss him. One said:
"'Pears to be a fool."
"'Pears?" said another. "Is, I reckon you better say."
"Said he wished he owned half of the dog, the idiot," said a third. "What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his half? Do you reckon he thought it would live?"
"Why, he must have thought it, unless he is the downrightest fool in the world; because if he hadn't thought it, he would have wanted to own the whole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the other half died, he would be responsible for that half just the same as if he had killed that half instead of his own. Don't it look that way to you, gents?"
"Yes, it does. If he owned one half of the general dog, it would be so; if he owned one end of the dog and another person owned the other end, it would be so, just the same; particularly in the first case, because if you kill one half of a general dog, there ain't any man that can tell whose half it was, but if he owned one end of the dog, maybe he could kill his end of it and-"
"No, he couldn't either; he couldn't and not be responsible if the other end died, which it would. In my opinion the man ain't in his right mind."
"In my opinion he hain't got any mind."
No. 3 said: "Well, he's a lummox, anyway."
"That's what he is," said No. 4, "he's a labrick-just a Simon-pure labrick, if ever there was one."
"Yes, sir, he's a dam fool, that's the way I put him up," said No. 5. "Anybody can think different that wants to, but those are my sentiments."
"I'm with you, gentlemen," said No. 6. "Perfect jackass-yes, and it ain't going too far to say he is a pudd'nhead. If he ain't a pudd'nhead, I ain't no judge, that's all."
Mr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over the town, and gravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first name; Pudd'nhead took its place. In time he came to be liked, and well liked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it stayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to get it set aside, or even modified. The nickname soon ceased to carry any harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was to continue to hold its place for twenty long years.
* * *
Curl up with a collection of stories from the pen of one of the masters of American fiction and humor writing. This carefully curated volume of Twain's short stories represents a cross-section of some the author's finest work, including the title piece, which follows a stranger's plot to corrupt a purportedly honest community.
This is the second e-book in a five-volume electronic edition that includes the texts of every known letter written by Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) from 1876 through 1880. The more than 700 letters published here have never before been gathered together and offered to the public in an easily accessible, organized fashion. Carefully transcribed and dated, they are presented here in a spare, unadorned manner, offering an unprecedented look at an important period in the life of this pre-eminent American author.
First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America--an age of corruption, of national optimism, and of crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciousiy taking advantage of that new optimism.
This volume spans the length of Mark Twains career, and contains some of his most famous shorter works, which all centre on the subject of Money. The Celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County is the most perfect tall tale in the English language, three flawless pages about Jim Smiley and the bizarre sidelines he would investigate to win a bet, any bet, written in a miraculous mid-19th century California vernacular. If that isnt enough, Twain tops it with the best closing paragraph of any work I have ever read ever. The $1,000,000 Bank note is almost surreal, or Marxist, the story of a derelict made an unwitting guinea pig by two elderly millionaires, curious to see what would happen to an honest but poor man in the possession of such an impractible note. The frightening fetishistic power of currency structures a somewhat creepily benevolent narrative, and the opening paragraphs audaciously cram a novels worth of misfortune. I have taught this book at the college level for a few years now; it definitely sheds Twains unfortunate Americana image, and it reveals the darker genius of this beloved author. Twains greatest work, The Mysterious Stranger will enrage fundamentalist Christians, several of whom have dropped my course because of this novella. Asking people to think about what is real, what is behind existence, though, is no crime and should be inoffensive. Young people who are harmed by systematic thinking will react to this book like people being deprogrammed from a cult: they will hate it. But Twain, who was in anguish when he wrote this, had the honesty to ask difficult questions. Read The Mysterious Stranger as a guide to Twains futuristic thinking, his tribute to the mind above all other things.
Trajectory presents classics of world literature with 21st century features! Our original-text editions include the following visual enhancements to foster a deeper understanding of the work: Word Clouds at the start of each chapter highlight important words. Word, sentence, paragraph counts, and reading time help readers and teachers determine chapter complexity. Co-occurrence graphs depict character-to-character interactions as well character to place interactions. Sentiment indexes identify positive and negative trends in mood within each chapter. Frequency graphs help display the impact this book has had on popular culture since its original date of publication. Use Trajectory analytics to deepen comprehension, to provide a focus for discussions and writing assignments, and to engage new readers with some of the greatest stories ever told."Is Shakespeare Dead?: From my autobiography" is one of Mark Twain's controversial books about Twain's own questioning of the authenticity of Shakespeare's works.
Short humorous novel. According to Wikipedia: "Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was a humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer from the United States of America. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is also known for his quotations. During his lifetime, Twain became a friend to presidents, artists, leading industrialists and European royalty. Twain enjoyed immense public popularity, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. American author William Faulkner called Twain 'the father of American literature.'"
Lucia Balstone thought she had chosen the right man to spend the rest of her life with, but he was the one who ended her life. Their ten-year marriage seemed like a joke when her husband stabbed her with a dagger. Fortunately, God is never blind to people's tears. Lucia got a second chance. She was reborn at the age of 22, before all the terrible things had happened. This time, she was determined to avenge herself and let those who hurt her pay! She made an elaborate list of her goals, and the first thing on her list was to marry her ex-husband's enemy, Alonso Callen!
Lindsey's fiancé was the devil's first son. Not only did he lie to her but he also slept with her stepmother, conspired to take away her family fortune, and then set her up to have sex with a total stranger. To get her lick back, Lindsey decided to find a man to disrupt her engagement party and humiliate the cheating bastard. Never did she imagine that she would bump into a strikingly handsome stranger who was all that she was currently looking for. At the engagement party, he boldly declared that she was his woman. Lindsey thought he was just a broke man who wanted to leech off her. But once they began their fake relationship, she realized that good luck kept coming her way. She thought they would part ways after the engagement party, but this man kept to her side. "We gotta stick together, Lindsey. Remember, I'm now your fiancé. " "Domenic, you're with me because of my money, aren't you?" Lindsey asked, narrowing her eyes at him. Domenic was taken aback by that accusation. How could he, the heir of the Walsh family and CEO of Vitality Group, be with her for money? He controlled more than half of the city's economy. Money wasn't a problem for him! The two got closer and closer. One day, Lindsey finally realized that Domenic was actually the stranger she had slept with months ago. Would this realization change things between them? For the better or worse?
There was only one man in Raegan's heart, and it was Mitchel. In the second year of her marriage to him, she got pregnant. Raegan's joy knew no bounds. But before she could break the news to her husband, he served her divorce papers because he wanted to marry his first love. After an accident, Raegan lay in the pool of her own blood and called out to Mitchel for help. Unfortunately, he left with his first love in his arms. Raegan escaped death by the whiskers. Afterward, she decided to get her life back on track. Her name was everywhere years later. Mitchel became very uncomfortable. For some reason, he began to miss her. His heart ached when he saw her all smiles with another man. He crashed her wedding and fell to his knees while she was at the altar. With bloodshot eyes, he queried, "I thought you said your love for me is unbreakable? How come you are getting married to someone else? Come back to me!"
They don't know I'm a girl. They all look at me and see a boy. A prince. Their kind purchase humans like me for their lustful desires. And, when they stormed into our kingdom to buy my sister, I intervened to protect her. I made them take me too. The plan was to escape with my sister whenever we found a chance. How was I to know our prison would be the most fortified place in their kingdom? I was supposed to be on the sidelines. The one they had no real use for. The one they never meant to buy. But then, the most important person in their savage land-their ruthless beast king-took an interest in the "pretty little prince." How do we survive in this brutal kingdom, where everyone hates our kind and shows us no mercy? And how does someone, with a secret like mine, become a lust slave? . AUTHOR'S NOTE. This is a dark romance-dark, mature content. Highly rated 18+ Expect triggers, expect hardcore. If you're a seasoned reader of this genre, looking for something different, prepared to go in blindly not knowing what to expect at every turn, but eager to know more anyway, then dive in! . From the author of the international bestselling book: "The Alpha King's Hated Slave."
Two years ago, Ricky found himself coerced into marrying Emma to protect the woman he cherished. From Ricky's perspective, Emma was despicable, resorting to underhanded schemes to ensure their marriage. He maintained a distant and cold attitude toward her, reserving his warmth for another. Yet, Emma remained wholeheartedly dedicated to Ricky for more than ten years. As she grew weary and considered relinquishing her efforts, Ricky was seized by a sudden fear. Only when Emma's life teetered on the edge, pregnant with Ricky's child, did he recognize-the love of his life had always been Emma.
"I'm going to tell you what I have in mind," he murmured. "First you're going to strip down until you're completely naked," he whispered against her ear. "Then I'm going to tie you up so you're completely powerless and subject to my every whim." "Mmm, sounds good so far," she murmured. "Then I'm going to insert a plug to prepare you for me. After that I'm going to spank that sweet ass of yours until it's rosy with my marks." She shivered uncontrollably, her mind exploding with the images he evoked. She let out a small whimper as he sucked the lobe of her ear into his mouth. God, she could cum with just his words. She was already aching with need. Her nipples tingled and hardened to painful points. Her clit pulsed and twitched between her legs until she clamped her thighs together to alleviate the burn. "And then I'm going to f**k your mouth. But I won't cum. Not yet. When I'm close, I'll flog you again until your ass is burning and you're on fire with the need for relief. And then I'm going to f**k that ass. I'm going to take you hard and rough, to the very limits of what you can withstand. I won't be gentle. Not tonight. I'm going to take you as roughly as you can stand. And then I'm going to cum all over your ass. Are you ready to be completely and utterly dominated?"