A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) (The ^AOxford Mark Twain) - Hardcover
One of Twain's best-loved stories next to his classic tales of Huck and Tom, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court vibrates with slapstick comedy and serious social commentary. While Hank Morgan, Twain's time-displaced Yankee traveler, keeps up a steady stream of flippancies, founding the first tabloid, the Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano, and organizing a game of baseball between armor-clad knights, he also keeps up a steady commentary on the social mores of King Arthur's court, criticizing the hereditary social classes and state church still strong in the Victorian England of Twain's own day, and championing women's suffrage and union labor organization. Widely regarded as one of the first science fiction novels, this edition also features an introduction by Kurt Vonnegut, our own twentieth century master of satiric social commentary and science fiction. It also features the original illustrations by Dan Beard, chosen by Twain himself to illustrate the book, whose drawings brilliantly mix buffoonery with sharp social satire: sharp-eyed readers, for instance, will spot that the model for Merlin, Hank's nemesis, is none other than Tennyson, whose Idylls of the King made the romantic vision of King Arthur's court nearly a sacred Victorian cult. By turns side-splittingly funny and somberly thought-provoking, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is Twain at his finest.
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This novel tells the story of Hank Morgan, the quintessential self-reliant New Englander who brings to King Arthur's Age of Chivalry the "great and beneficent" miracles of nineteenth-century engineering and American ingenuity. Through the collision of past and present, Twain exposes the insubstantiality of both utopias, destroying the myth of the romantic ideal as well as his own era's faith in scientific and social progress.
A central document in American intellectual history, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is at once a hilarious comedy of anachronisms and incongruities, a romantic fantasy, a utopian vision, and a savage, anarchic social satire that only one of America's greatest writers could pen.
A central document in American intellectual history, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is at once a hilarious comedy of anachronisms and incongruities, a romantic fantasy, a utopian vision, and a savage, anarchic social satire that only one of America's greatest writers could pen.
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- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 0195114108
- ISBN 13 9780195114102
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages656
- Rating
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) (The Oxford Mark Twain)
Published by
Oxford University Press, USA
(1997)
ISBN 10: 0195114108
ISBN 13: 9780195114102
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Paperback
Quantity: 1
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # DADAX0195114108
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) The Oxford Mark Twain
Published by
Oxford University Press, Oxford, Cambridge, New York, Toronto, Melbourne, &c.
(1997)
ISBN 10: 0195114108
ISBN 13: 9780195114102
New
Hardcover
First Edition
Quantity: 1
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Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. With the original illustrations by Dan Beard (chosen by Twain himself) (illustrator). 1st Edition. HILARIOUS: SOMBERLY THROUGHT-PROVOKING: INSPIRATIONAL: ENTERTAINING: INSTRUCTIVE: DELIGHTFUL: CLASSIC: NEW First Edition hardcover (Orig. 1997) Second Printing: NEW handsomely-designed-illus. mylar-protected jacket showing orig. $28.00 price at bottom-right inside-front flyleaf, NEW cover w/ maroon linen wrapping spine & extending 1.36" over front & back panels handsomely covered in matching medium-maroon paper & w/ titles ELEGANTLY black-stamped on spine, IMMACULATE smooth-cut text block exterior, NEW perfect binding w/ tight sheets & red-white-checked cloth banding at spine-caps, IMPECCABLE cream-white card-stock end-papers, PRISTINE interior printed w/ ELEGANT clarity in Minion on EXCELLENT unblemished silk-finish pure-white archival paper * 6.46" x 8.64" x 1.86", 1.12 kg, xxxiii+578+36 (647) pp * CONTENTS: Editor's Note (x), Foreword (xi), Introduction (xxxi), "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (xvi+17-578), Afterword, (1), For Further Reading (16), Illustrators & Illustrations in Mark Twain's First Editions (17), Reading the Illustrations in "A Connecticut Yankee" (21), A Note of the Text (28), Contributors (30), Acknowledgments (32) * ABOUT THE BOOK: "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is one of Twain's best-loved tales. A pioneering work of science fiction, it vibrates w/ slapstick comedy & serious social commentary as well. In this complex & ambitious tour de force, an inventive 19th-century resident of Hartford named Hank Morgan travels back in time to 16th-century England where he tries to introduce modern technology & political ideas. Along the way he founds the first tabloid, the "Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano", organizes a game of baseball between armor-clad knights, & "keeps up a steady fire of flippancies, so frequent that no reader registers all of them on the first go-around," as Louis Budd reminds us in his introduction. "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is Twain's most complex & disturbing meditation on technology, as well as a powerful consideration of politics & power. The original illustrations by Dan Beard, chosen by Twain himself to illustrate the book, brilliantly mix buffoonery w/ sharp social satire in an effective counterpoint to the text. By turns side-splittingly funny & somberly thought-provoking, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is Twain at his finest. * ABOUT "THE OXFORD MARK TWAIN": Colorful, irreverent, romantic, skeptical, a master of comic asides, a bittersweet humorist, & an unflinching critic of human pretensions, Mark Twain speaks to us across time w/ verve & wisdom. Under the direction of noted Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin, & w/ fresh appreciations by a pantheon of leading writers & scholars, we now have "The Oxford Mark Twain"--29 glorious volumes of facsimile first editions make accessible to devoted readers ALL of Mark Twain, in all his richness & complexity, to inspire, entertain, instruct, & delight. * SHIPPING: MNEMOSYNE carefully wraps, labels & custom-packages this fine book for FREE domestic shipment via USPS MEDIA MAIL or USPS PRIORITY MAIL for a below-cost additional fee & via Mandatory USPS PRIORITY INTERNATIONAL AIRMAIL to international destinations at our posted rates. Seller Inventory # 009870
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