Customer Reviews

The Gilded Age

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book, written by Twain and Warner, pokes fun at American society during what they called "the guilded age". This term has stuck and is often used by historians to describe the period 1877-1914. Twain and Warner see this time as one where men care only for money. These men will not work hard, but merely scheme and plot in order to strike it rich. The dialogue in the book is very snappy, the best being when Laura Hawkins arrives in Washington, DC and meets with the other high society ladies. I would recommend this book to anybody interested in United States History, or just those who want to read a good novel. The book can drag at times, but overall is very engrossing.

The post-Civil War years were a time of rapid industrialization in America, aided and abetted by burgeoning plans to build a transcontinental railroad. Many people saw an opportunity to get a piece of the action, to speculate with family savings, the little that there were, in hopes of making millions of dollars in return. Investing in coal mining was one example. It is against this background that _The Gilded Age_ takes place.

Many in Congress saw an opportunity to support various projects that were supposedly for the public good, e.g. building a university for the newly freed slaves upon land, located in Tenneesee, bequeathed by a family patriarch to his children. These schemes were also meant to line many people's pockets. The novel's Senator Dilworthy supports various liberal causes and "family values," i.e. Sunday school education, but is also thoroughly corrupt.

_The Gilded Age_ is meant to be a morality tale where everyone receives his just deserts: the evil or those just plain greedy are punished, including a vengence seeking young woman deeply wronged by her married lover, and the good and the conscientious are rewarded. While the book occasionally gets bogged down in the scandalous details of this young woman's love life, _The Gilded Age_ is often an interesting, lively and educational glance into the manners of 1870s America.

Several people here are saying this is just a scanned copy of the book and that it contains only
30-some of what should be 63 chapters. That's not the case with this edition of the book, the Penguin Classics
edition. Apparently they're talking about this edition: The Gilded Age which is a scanned, print
on demand photocopy.

You can use the "look inside this book" feature to see that all 63 chapters are here. Anyone familiar with the Penguin
Classics series knows that they are not scanned photocopies, filled with typos, or missing significant sections of the book.

Just thought I'd let you know that you can disregard the "don't buy this edition!" posts here, because this is not the edition they're actually talking about.

Literary legend has it that Twain and Warner's wives had prompted these two authors to work together on The Gilded Age. Some versions of the story have it a dinner party challenge-- where the two men were dared to work together in order to produce a novel better than the popular fiction that their wives were reading. Whatever the true cause, it is an interesting experiment. The Gilded Age is a book worth reading, particularly if you are interested in the history or the popular novels of the 1870s.

The story follows the fortune of the good but silly Hawkins family and their children, both biological and adopted. The Hawkins family is chiefly concerned with the idea of making their fortune, and invest a huge amount of hope and trust in their twin poles of "the Tennesee Land" and the schemes of their family friend, Colonel Beriah Sellers.

The plot is extremely melodramatic, much in keeping with popular fiction of the day. Hidden identities, lost parents, ruined women and handsome cads populate the storyline. Mixed in with this is the classic Twain "pen warmed up in Hell"-- he takes on the corruption of the era, pointing his venom at Congress, the railroad, and at the "reconstruction efforts" theoretically designed to improve conditions in the south while actually being little more then efforts to line pockets, thinly disguised.

It is occasionally an uneven ride. The melodramatic plot and characters are often a very odd fit with the vicious,dry and funny commentary that is made about corruption and public morals. I think it is more enjoyable if you have had exposure to contemporary writers such as Mary Jane Holmes. I kept thinking of this as The English Orphans on crack to try to keep the context in mind.

Despite the uneven quality, I really enjoyed the book. The political commentary may miss on some of the specific scandals, but the general points should still be pointy enough to make current politicians wince. And, like most Twain efforts (even a co-authored book like this one) it is often riotously funny.

The introduction to the Penguin edition claims that the Gilded Age will never be forgotten for three reasons:

-- its association with Mark Twain
-- the accomplishment of having given a title to a political era
-- its status as a shockingly accurate mirror of period corruption

I will not argue with that analysis.

Highly recommmended. Kudos to the Penguin Classic edition for the genuinely helpful introduction by Louis J. Budd and the useful notes and appendices at the back of the book.

The second half the book is missing, and what is there has so many printing glitches that it is hard to read. I was disappointed that I could even buy this from Amazon.

This edition was scanned from the original using Optical Character Recognition software to keep the cost down, therefore, there are typos that resulted from smudged or worn pages. While this information is disclosed in the book as well as in the product description from Amazon, the typos can be distracting while reading. Also if you need to read the entirety of the novel, do not waste your time with this edition as it only covers chapters 1-31. There are many more than that (63 I believe). Overall, I would not recommend this edition to anyone. Do not waste your money on it!

I chose this book to use for two bookclub meetings, one for the American gilded age and the other for the study of Mark Twain. It's perfect for both. Although it's not the best book written by Twain it is his first full length book and very interesting from that prospective as well. I'll also add that it's not an easy book to read due to the style and language.

What is interesting is the story which with some alterations could be written today. The story line explores the dreaming and scheaming of those who want to get rich quick, politicans who are less than honest and those too lazy to work or to have a desire for improvement. It could describe people and situations that we've all encountered (perhaps we can even find ourselves).

I'd recommend this book to those who are interested in the age following the American Civil War.

"The Gilded Age" was my first Kindle book. I read it along with a history of the Progressive Movement, which was enjoyable and useful for placing myself in late 19th-century America. Twain created a satirical tragedy that masterfully encapsulates the excess of the Gilded Age, and the distractions that drove our entire society into a ditch. It's brilliance is manifested by its relevance to our world today, almost 140 years after its publication. The story describes a fundamental aspect of human nature that we all need to examine more closely.

Mark Twain is such an American treasure; I wish he had a contemporary counterpart.

Senate Seats for Sale...Corruption in Congress...Speculators Losing Fortunes...Lawyers Making a Mockery of the Justice System...these are all things that Mr. Twain and Mr. Dudley poke fun at in "The Gilded Age." These are all subjects that Twain could still make sport of if he were still writing today.

Most of the action centers on various parties trying to make a fortune without working for it. While this is not one of Mark Twain's better novels it is entertaining and at times reads like something out of a Marx Brothers movie.

Witty, engaging and expertly crafted, The Gilded Age reveals Twain's and Warner's cynicism of American business practices (rampant, unrestrained speculation) and Washington politics post-Civil War. For the most part, the main characters are rather flawed. The sometimes loathsome sometimes loveable Col. Eschol Sellers is a well-meaning huckster. Many of the figures on the periphery are out-and-out crooks, dishonest, slimy sorts that would do or say anything for a buck. The only winner in the end is Philip Sterling, the only character willing to work hard to make an honest fortune.

Some critics have said that this book was Twain's answer to Ben Franklin's elevation of the so-called Protestant work ethic and something of a critique of American capitalism. That conclusion, in my view, is misguided. While Twain's and Warner's contempt of corruption and dishonest business dealings is glaringly obvious from the way the stories are told, they quite as obviously seem to honor those who truly earned their fortunes or made something of themselves by honest, productive effort. Sterling is an example of that. That is the essence of the Protestant work ethic.

Social commentary aside, like Twain's other work, The Gilded Age is terribly funny. About every other page, one of his brilliant witicisms will make you laugh out loud, a situation that can be a bit awkward when reading the book in public.