Pudd'nhead Wilson - (Works of Mark Twain) by Mark Twain

About the Book

"Mark Twain's story of the antebellum South, first published in 1894, continues to prompt conversations about race and the dire legacy of American slavery. At its heart is Roxy, a mixed-race woman enslaved to a wealthy Missouri family. To save her infant son (whose father was white) from being 'sold down the river,' Roxy switches him in the cradle with her master's own son, setting in motion a train of ironic and bitter events. With its mixture of farce, social commentary, tragedy, and satire, Pudd'nhead Wilson has come to be one of Mark Twain's most read and most studied works. But few have read the original Pudd'nhead Wilson. The text familiar since 1894, as editor Benjamin Griffin shows, was heavily edited and censored--first by the author himself under pressure from family and friends, and then by his publishers. Now the Mark Twain Project makes available the full text of the Morgan Library manuscript (the original version), together with a critical text of the revised version, stripped of the changes imposed by Mark Twain's editors and publishers--two fascinating ways to encounter this troubled and troubling novel"

Book Synopsis

This critical edition publishes--for the first time anywhere--the original manuscript and revised versions of Pudd'nhead Wilson.

Mark Twain's story of the antebellum South, first published in 1894, continues to prompt conversations about race and the dire legacy of American slavery. At its heart is Roxy, a mixed-race woman enslaved to a wealthy Missouri family. To save her infant son (whose father was white) from being "sold down the river," Roxy switches him in the cradle with her master's son, setting in motion a train of ironic and bitter events. With its mixture of farce, social commentary, tragedy, and satire, Pudd'nhead Wilson has come to be one of Mark Twain's most-read and most-studied works.

But few have read the original Pudd'nhead Wilson. The text familiar since 1894, as editor Benjamin Griffin shows, was heavily edited and censored--first by the author himself under pressure from family and friends, then by his publishers. Now the Mark Twain Project makes available the full text of the Morgan Library manuscript (the original version), together with a critical text of the revised version, stripped of the changes imposed by Mark Twain's editors and publishers--two fascinating ways to encounter this troubled and troubling novel.

From the Back Cover

"Finally, an expansive, comprehensive analysis of one of Mark Twain's most prescient works. A primary and secondary resource that scholars and, more importantly, classroom teachers can readily access and on which they can rely. This book captures the historical moment, Mark Twain's personal and authorial perspectives, and his crucial attention to language and verisimilitude. Brilliant!"--Jocelyn A. Chadwick, coauthor of Teaching Literature in the Context of Literacy Instruction

Review Quotes

"Benjamin Griffin's outstanding critical edition of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) recounts the tangled composition history that led Mark Twain to perform what he famously described as a 'literary Caesarian operation' upon the novel."-- "Textual Cultures"

"The new Mark Twain Project edition of Pudd'nhead Wilson is an opportunity for readers to gain more insight into the author's sincere, if imperfect, efforts to attack the scourge of racial prejudice."-- "The Objective Standard"

"Thanks to the Mark Twain project, which has published authoritative editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as well as multiple volumes of his letters, we now have the definitive and original version of Pudd'nhead Wilson, without the subsequent changes forced on the author by friends and publishers. We also have the revised version in this volume, so readers can see how the tale of the slave who switched her baby, who is black, with the son of her master evolved under Twain's pen."-- "Airmail"

"If you add only one book to your Mark Twain research library this year . . . this is the one."-- "Mark Twain Forum Reviews"

About the Author

Benjamin Griffin is an editor at the Mark Twain Project, which is housed within the Mark Twain Papers in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. For more than four decades the Project has been producing a complete scholarly edition of everything the author wrote. Griffin's previous editorial credits include the three volumes of the best-selling Autobiography of Mark Twain.