After a blow to the head, a practical, wisecracking Connecticut engineer wakes up in sixth-century England — and immediately sets about "fixing" the Middle Ages with 19th-century know-how, from telephones to gunpowder, while King Arthur's knights look on in bewilderment. What starts as satire on medieval romance turns into something sharper: a warning about what happens when progress meets power without wisdom.

Twain at his funniest and most cutting — a time-travel fantasy that's really an argument about the century Twain actually lived in, wrapped in Round Table jokes that still land.