Other Fiction Twain, Mark: Pudd'nhead Wilson (Illustrated).v1. 28 Sep 2014

[GrannyGrump]

PUDD’NHEAD WILSON (Illustrated)
by Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835 – 1910)

First published in 1894.
The text of this book is in the public domain world-wide, because the author died more than 100 years ago. Illustrations and introductory material are in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less.

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Mark Twain, author and humorist, is most noted for the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called “the Great American Novel.” Some of his works include Innocents Abroad, A Tramp Abroad, Roughing It, The Prince and the Pauper, and many others.

Pudd’nhead Wilson is one of Twain’s less well-known (and perhaps less well-regarded) works. Set in a small Missouri river town, the story takes place before the American Civil War during the 1830s, ’40s, and ’50s; and centers around questions of identity and race.

At the beginning, a young slave woman, fearing for her infant son’s life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master’s son. 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.—Summary from Goodreads.com

Caution to readers: Contains some racially derogatory language and caricature illustrations.

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Editing notes ---

Text is based on the 1923 “Definitive Edition” from Gabriel Wells publishing, and was proofed and corrected against a pdf scan of that book. I formatted punctuation, diacritics, and italics; added scene breaks; cross-linked chapter heads to html table of contents; embedded fonts for titling and small-caps.

The book includes 506 “marginal illustrations” from the American first edition, and the full-page illustrations from the London first edition and the 1899 Uniform Edition. Images were manually cleaned and enhanced. Unfortunately I only found two sources for the first edition images, both poor. These were very small and pale -- perhaps someday I will find a better source. Also, there were far too many tiny illustrations to make a “centered-images” version this time.

The cover was designed and created for this project by MiniMouse, MobileRead forum member. See more of her fine work here.

The companion piece, Those Extraordinary Twins, usually included with Pudd’nhead Wilson, is available as a separate volume here.

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