000			01456nam a2200181 4500
010			_a62005697
020			_a9781101873113
024			_a880756853
050			_aPS1317
082			_a813.4
100	1		_aMark Twain
245	1		_aPudd'nhead Wilson
260			_bKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
300			_a192 pages
520			_aMark Twain's darkest novel--about a master and slave switched at birth--combines a courtroom drama with a provocative fable about race and identity. Twain's plot is set in motion when a slave named Roxy exchanges her light-skinned son Chambers with her master's baby, Tom. Roxy's child, now known as Tom, grows up as a spoiled, privileged white man, who is horrified when Roxy tells him the truth. He nearly gets away with a vicious crime, but his downfall comes in the form of a clever, eccentric lawyer, nicknamed "Puddn'head" Wilson. Twain's novel was the first to use fingerprinting to solve a crime, but its significance goes much further as an investigation into the nature of identity. When the two young men are forced to change places again, the former slave finds himself exiled to a white world where he will never feel at ease, while Roxy's child discovers that his newfound value as human property outweighs his guilt as a murderer. Despite its ironic humor and the symmetrical neatness of its denouement, Pudd'nhead Wilson is a tragedy that refuses easy answers.
650			_aLiterature
999			_c15401 _d15401