A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

With his characteristic sardonic humor, Mark Twain (1835-1910), lambastes nineteenth-century aristocratic and religious ideals through the 1896 story of Hank Morgan's transport back to feudal times. The Yankee's attempt to engineer and enlighten Arthurian society meets with unexpected and always humorous results. Underneath the comedy, however, is a dark, ambitious critique of human nature that marks an important transition to Twain's pessimistic later writings.