At the beginning of Pudd'nhead Wilson a young slave woman, fearing for her infant's son's life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master's. From this rather simple premise Mark Twain fashioned one of his most entertaining, funny, yet biting novels. On its surface, Pudd'nhead Wilson possesses all the elements of an engrossing nineteenth-century mystery: reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, a suspenseful courtroom drama, and a surprising, unusual solution. Yet it is not a mystery novel. Seething with the undercurrents of antebellum southern culture, the book is a savage indictment in which the real criminal is society, and racial prejudice and slavery are the crimes. Written in 1894, Pudd'nhead Wilson glistens with characteristic Twain humor, with suspense, and with pointed irony: a gem among the author's later works
At the beginning of Pudd'nhead Wilson a young slave woman, fearing for her infant's son's life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master's. From this rather simple premise Mark Twain fashioned one of his most entertaining, funny, yet biting novels. On its surface, Pudd'nhead Wilson possesses all the elements of an engrossing nineteenth-century mystery: reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, a suspenseful courtroom drama, and a surprising, unusual solution. Yet it is not a mystery novel. Seething with the undercurrents of antebellum southern culture, the book is a savage indictment in which the real criminal is society, and racial prejudice and slavery are the crimes. Written in 1894, Pudd'nhead Wilson glistens with characteristic Twain humor, with suspense, and with pointed irony: a gem among the author's later works
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Casi todo el mundo sabe hoy quien es Mark Twain, pero pocos saben que su verdadero nombre era Samuel Langhorne Clemens y que nació prematuramente en Florida, en el Estado de Missouri, en 1835. A los veinte años, tras haber sido tipógrafo en un pueblo del Mississipi, vagabundeaba ya por el Estado de Nevada en busca de plata, que jamás encontró, y a los 35, era hombre casado y célebre. Inquieto, aventurero y vital en su juventud, en la madurez, no contento con el éxito como escritor, cayó presa del afán de dinero, que le llevó a arruinarse en más de una ocasión y a alejarse de su mujer y de sus hijas. Su vida fue la de un hombre contradictorio, eternamente insatisfecho. Treinta y siete volúmenes ocupa su obra completa, lo cual nos indica lo poco que sabemos del creador de los inefables Tom Sawyer y Huckleberry Finn, compañeros inseparables de nuestra infancia.
