The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain — Bibliomancer edition cover
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Fiction · 1881

The Prince and the Pauper

Mark Twain

Reading time
about 5 h
Length
69,516 words · 182 pages in print
Structure
33 chapters · 2 front-matter sections
Language
English
Era
Victorian

Two boys born on the same day in 1537 — Edward, Prince of Wales, and Tom Canty of Offal Court — exchange clothes for a joke and find they cannot exchange back. Mark Twain’s first historical novel, published in 1881, is also his first book for children; it is set in the London and England of Henry VIII’s last days.

Twain wanted it taken seriously as history, and the book is at its best where the joke stops: Tom Canty discovering that the Great Seal he has been cracking nuts with is the thing the kingdom is looking for, and Edward on the road with the Ruffler’s gang, watching people burned and branded because the law of England says so.

The thirty-three chapters are given complete, with Twain’s own notes on his sources.

Contents

  1. Note
  2. Chapter I — The birth of the Prince and the Pauper
  3. Chapter II — Tom’s early life
  4. Chapter III — Tom’s meeting with the Prince
  5. Chapter IV — The Prince’s troubles begin
  6. Chapter V — Tom as a Patrician
  7. Chapter VI — Tom receives instructions
  8. Chapter VII — Tom’s first royal dinner
  9. Chapter VIII — The Question of the Seal
  10. Chapter IX — The river pageant
  11. Chapter X — The Prince in the toils
  12. Chapter XI — At Guildhall
  13. Chapter XII — The Prince and his Deliverer
  14. Chapter XIII — The disappearance of the Prince
  15. Chapter XIV — ‘Le Roi est mort—vive le Roi.’
  16. Chapter XV — Tom as King
  17. Chapter XVI — The State Dinner
  18. Chapter XVII — Foo-foo the First
  19. Chapter XVIII — The Prince with the Tramps
  20. Chapter XIX — The Prince with the peasants
  21. Chapter XX — The Prince and the hermit
  22. Chapter XXI — Hendon to the rescue
  23. Chapter XXII — A Victim of Treachery
  24. Chapter XXIII — The Prince a prisoner
  25. Chapter XXIV — The Escape
  26. Chapter XXV — Hendon Hall
  27. Chapter XXVI — Disowned
  28. Chapter XXVII — In Prison
  29. Chapter XXVIII — The sacrifice
  30. Chapter XXIX — To London
  31. Chapter XXX — Tom’s progress
  32. Chapter XXXI — The Recognition procession
  33. Chapter XXXII — Coronation Day
  34. Chapter XXXIII — Edward as King
  35. Footnotes and Twain’s Notes

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About this edition

The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer and held to human review; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.

Part of American Literature.

Source mind

About the author

Mark Twain

1835–1910 · Victorian

A Bibliomancer biography of Mark Twain is in preparation. See all their books.

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