The Tragedy of Puddnhead Wilson, wit..., Mark Twain
The Tragedy of Puddnhead Wilson, wit..., Mark Twain
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The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, with eBook

Author: Mark Twain

Narrator: Michael Prichard

Unabridged: 6 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/09/2009

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

Two half brothers look so similar as infants that no one can tell them apart. One, the legitimate son of a rich man, is destined for a life of comfort, while the other is condemned to be a slave because he is part black. The mother of the would-be slave is also the nurse of the other; to give her son the best life possible, she switches the babies. Soon the boy who is given every advantage becomes spoiled and cruel. He takes sadistic pleasure in tormenting his half brother. As they grow older, the townspeople no longer notice that the boys look similar, and they readily accept that each is born to his station.

A local lawyer, David Wilson, has had a similar experience. On his first day in the village, he made an odd remark about a dog, and the townspeople gave him the condescending name "Pudd'nhead." Although he was a young, intelligent lawyer, he is unable to live down this name, so he toils in obscurity for over twenty years. Finally, he is presented with a complex murder trial—a chance to prove himself to the townspeople and shake this unjust label.

About Mark Twain

Mark Twain is the pseudonym of American writer and humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), whose best work is characterized by broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire. Twain's writing is also known for realism of place and language, memorable characters, and hatred of hypocrisy and oppression.

Born in Florida, Missouri, Clemens moved with his family to Hannibal, Missouri, a port on the Mississippi River, when he was four years old. There he received a public school education. After the death of his father in 1847, Clemens was apprenticed to two Hannibal printers, and in 1851 he began setting type for and contributing sketches to his brother Orion's Hannibal Journal. Subsequently he worked as a printer in Keokuk, Iowa; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and other cities. Later, Clemens was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River until the American Civil War brought an end to travel on the river. In 1862 he became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, and in 1863 he began signing his articles with the pseudonym Mark Twain, a Mississippi River phrase meaning "two fathoms deep."

In 1867 Twain lectured in New York City, and in the same year he visited Europe and Palestine. He wrote of these travels in The Innocents Abroad, a book exaggerating those aspects of European culture that impress American tourists. Much of Twain's best work was written in the 1870s and 1880s, when he was living in Hartford, Connecticut, or during the summers at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, New York. Roughing It recounts his early adventures as a miner and journalist; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer celebrates boyhood in a town on the Mississippi River; A Tramp Abroad describes a walking trip through the Black Forest of Germany and the Swiss Alps; Life on the Mississippi combines an autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot with a visit to the Mississippi nearly two decades after he left it; and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court satirizes oppression in feudal England. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the sequel to Tom Sawyer, is considered Twain's masterpiece.

Twain's work during the 1890s and the 1900s is marked by growing pessimism and bitterness. Significant works of this period are Pudd'nhead Wilson, a novel set in the South before the Civil War that criticizes racism by focusing on mistaken racial identities, and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, a sentimental biography.

In Twain's later years he wrote less, but he became a celebrity, frequently speaking out on public issues. He also came to be known for the white linen suit he always wore when making public appearances. Twain received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1907. When he died he left an uncompleted autobiography, which was eventually edited by his secretary, Albert Bigelow Paine, and published in 1924.


Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Bunny on 2007-08-04 13:21:09

I knew little of Mark Twain's work except what I HAD to read in school--Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer. While those are great reads, Puddin' Head is an exhilerating, low-key romp of an entirely different ilk. We've all know these characters. They are timeless. They live next door, work in the same building or are related to us, albiet DISTANTLY, of course. It was fun from beginning to end, and I learned a lot from Puddin' Head's calendar!

Goodreads review by Henry

During the antebellum south on the western shore of the broad, mighty , muddy Mississippi River 2,350 miles long and miles wide, in the golden era of the steamboats ( numbering an astounding 1,200, vessels ) feed by more than a dozen tributaries, they continuously went up and down those waters and e......more

Goodreads review by mark

Samuel Langhorne Clemens: I shall write a classic novel, full of my customary barbed wit yet leavened with my compassion for humanity. I shall open the tale with a delightfully wry meta-introduction - before "meta" was even a thing! The wryness shall continue throughout what will be an exciting stor......more

Goodreads review by Kressel

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has biting social commentary, but Puddin'head Wilson has all-out black humor. It's the story of Roxy, a light-skinned slave woman who successfully switches her even lighter-skinned son with her master's baby, and follows how each one grows up. I would have like......more

Goodreads review by Bill

If you consider a man's “best” books to be the ones with the most consistent tone and the fewest flaws, then Tom Sawyer and The Prince and the Pauper are Mark Twain’s best works of fiction. If, however, “best” means the most interesting, the most resonant, even if the flaws are considerable and the......more