The Prince and the Pauper

Description

Mark Twain's first historical novel, The Prince and the Pauper, is a classic adventure of mistaken identity that champions social justice. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition has an afterword by author and journalist, Nicolette Jones. Born in rival social classes in Tudor London, heir to the throne Edward Tudor and penniless Tom Canty have more in common than one might think. They meet by chance and, amused by how similar they look, swap clothes. Here follows a tightly woven plot of mistaken identity as Edward, dressed in Tom's rags, is thrown out of the palace while Tom is forced to undertake royal duties. Through colourful humour, rising tension and visual detail, Twain conjures a moral lesson of equality which is just as pertinent in today's society as it was for the Tudors.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Missouri in 1835. Early in his childhood, the family moved to Hannibal, Missouri - a town which would provide the inspiration for St Petersburg in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. When he started writing in earnest in his thirties, he adopted the pseudonym Mark Twain (the cry of a Mississippi boatman taking depth measurements, meaning 'two fathoms'), and a string of highly successful publications followed. His later life, however, was marked by personal tragedy and sadness, as well as financial difficulty. In 1894, several businesses in which he had invested failed, and he was declared bankrupt. Over the next fifteen years he saw the deaths of two of his beloved daughters, and his wife. Increasingly bitter and depressed, Twain died in 1910, aged seventy-five.

Twain's great virtue as a writer, his genius, was his deliberate refusal of borrowed propriety or scale. The tallest of tales could be fashioned from the most modest of ingredients -- Tim Adams * Guardian * Twain was ahead of his time. He was one of America's first modern celebrities, an icon of the first age of mass media -- Ben Tarnoff * New Yorker * Twain was surely the American Dickens, however much he would have hated the phrase-and however high a tribute it seems today -- Ellen Moers * New York Review of Books *