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.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
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. Michael Prichard has played several thousand characters during his career. While he has been seen performing over one hundred of them in theater and film, Michael is primarily heard, having recorded well over five hundred full-length books. During his career as a one-man repertory company, he has recorded many series with running characters---including the complete Travis McGee adventures by John D. MacDonald and the complete Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout---as well as series by such masters as Mark Twain, John Cheever, and John Updike. His numerous awards and accolades include an Audie Award for Tears in the Darkness by Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman and several AudioFile Earphones Awards, including for At All Costs by Sam Moses and In Nixon's Web by L. Patrick Gray III. Named a Top Ten Golden Voice by SmartMoney magazine, he holds an M.F.A. in theater from the University of Southern California. Michael appears regularly on the professional stage, including as a member of Ray Bradbury's Pandemonium Theatre Company, performing such great roles as Captain Beatty in Fahrenheit 451, which became the second-longest-running production in the Los Angeles area. Bradbury himself dubbed Michael "the finest Beatty in history."
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5.0 out of 5 stars
EXCELLENT RECORDING OF AN EXCELLENT BOOK BY AN EXCELLENT AUTHOR,
This review is from: The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, with eBook (MP3 CD)
This is a review of the Tantor Media production of The Tragedy of Pedd'nhead Wilson AND a review of the book itself. As you will note below, I have read this work several times but never listen to it be read to me. I have a grandson, who in turn has a young friend (they both are very bright students about to graduate from high school), who I found were put off and quite leery of reading this work. Further investigation revealed that kids today are a bit put off, intimidated or just "turned off" and have difficulties reading book which use heavy regional, racial or historic dialect. What to do? Well, I have had some success in understanding the Canterbury Tales and other old English works by first listening to the books on tape or CD and then reading the actual book. I thought that if it worked for me...why not this young man and woman. I tried it and it worked. I first had them listen to the CDs being reviewed here and then had them read the book. I think I made a breakthrough with both of them. Was I simply lucky? I don't know, I only know that I was able to open new doors for at least two young people and that is good enough for me.
This CD presentation being reviewed here is read by Michael Prichard. The quality is great. The running time is 6 hours, 33 minutes with 3 minute tracks...there are 6 CDs in the package. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson is not, I will admit, one of Twain's better works, yet when all is said and done, never the less one of my favorite. But that is of moot consideration for me personally as I am one of those individuals who admire everything that Twain ever wrote and would quite likely go into some sort of reading ecstasy if I were to lay my hands on even one of his grocery lists. This is my fifth or seventh reading of this particular work and it is just as fresh to me today as it was when I first read it at the age of 14, which I hate to admit, was many and many a year ago. The plot of this work is quite well known and has been very well addressed by several reviewers here so I will not add a lot as it would be a bit redundant and others have done much better in this area than I could manage. Briefly though, this is the story which is set in a small Missouri town along the Mississippi River, sometime before the Civil War. It is the story of two you men, one white and one black, who were switched at an early age by the black child's mother to save him from being eventually "sold down the river," a fate no slave at the time living in Missouri wanted. Many have been critical of this plot ploy by Twain, calling it unrealistic, but hey, it works for me. The story of course involves a much larger cast of characters, of which the only one in possession of any admirable characteristics is the name sake of the book; Pudd'nhead Wilson, an eccentric lawyer...actually, my kind of guy. Now for me this work has several qualities or points that I not only admire, but feel that Twain pulled off perfectly. They are, in my opinion, the heart; the guts and purpose of the story. They are what make this work valuable to me. First, it addresses slavery and the state of the slave and "master" during this period. There has been a myth in Missouri and many of the other boarder states perpetuated throughout the years that slaves living here during that time really did not have it all that bad. I can remember as a child actually talking to several individuals, very, very old individuals, who actually remembered the days of slavery or had at the very least, first hand accounts and remembrances of them through their parents. I have heard on many occasions words such as "Our family treated our slaves/darkies/blacks/, etc. just like family and they all had it pretty good...they all love my family." This folks is a load of...well, you know. Twain, who was very antislavery, was also an extremely good observer. Through works such as this he has etched in the mind of any thinking reader just how horrible it would be to be enslaved by even the most benign of owners. He has graphically pointed out in this small novel the inequities, hypocrisies, cruelties and inhumanity of the institution of slavery. This is powerful stuff folks. Secondly, Twain was a master of dialect...the dialect of the southern black slave and the dialect of the white southerner. There has been some recent critical articles as to his mastery and handling of this writing technique, but do keep in mind that he was a pioneer in this area and was more or less working alone with no great example to lead him...he lead others. Thirdly, despite the rather grim subject matter that the author was working with here, his ironic humor glimmers off of each page. Simply put; Twain was a funny man and was able to make observations into the state of our human nature that has probably never been equaled. Sarcastic, ironic, cutting...all of these, but all so true. The little excerpts form Wilson's calendar and pure literary gold. What makes it even better is that we can still see all of these foibles in ourselves even to this day. Twain had we the people nailed, and nailed perfectly. What an insightful man he was. Forth, Twain is simply a good story teller even if he is not on his "A Game." Again, this may not be his best work, but it is one of my favorite. Please reference my review of the actual book atThe Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson Don Blankenship The Ozarks
5.0 out of 5 stars
Steamboat Days,
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This review is from: The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, with eBook (MP3 CD)
If the colorful but denigrating perceived Negro dialect of Matk Twain's steamboat pilot days were to be deleted from this book, there wouldn't be a book left, vbut with that caveat there is much humor in the fact that MarkTwain started out to write a short narrative and found tht his characters had taken contro, introduced more, and were telling him an entirely different story. Te part that he cut out and treated as a separate story is funny. Puddin Head Wilson is a variant of the "switched tins" theme of The Prince and the Pauper. TTimes now are different. Wince with embarassment while you are reading it, but appreciate the historical verity.
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