Pudd'nhead Wilson
Readers rate it 3.5 (30 on Hardcover)
164 pages · Released 1984 · Bantam Classics
Content report card
Pudd'nhead Wilson parent’s guide: what’s inside
LGBTQ+ themes
Substance use
What it offers
A note for parents
Pudd'nhead Wilson is a sophisticated satirical novel that uses humor and irony to critique slavery and racial prejudice in antebellum America. While the plot involves a murder and courtroom drama, violence is not graphically depicted. The novel's central themes—identity, justice, and the moral bankruptcy of racism—require mature comprehension, making it better suited for high school than middle school readers, though some advanced younger teens could engage with it.
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From the publisher
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 o... 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.
Shelved under
- Fiction
- Calibre Import
- Classics
- Murder
- Conjoined twins
- Young Adult
- Literature
- Impostors and imposture
- Juvenile Fiction
- General
- Interracial persons
- American literature
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ISBN 9780553211580 · Bantam Classics