A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

This novel of Mark Twains -- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court -- gives us an odd view of the American literary genius: it shows is bent twoward science fictional. Twain wrote the book as a burlesque of Romantic notions of chivalry after being inspired by a dream in which he was a knight himself and severely inconvenienced by the weight and cumbersome nature of his armor.A Yankee engineer from Connecticut is accidentally transported back in time to the court of King Arthur where he fools the inhabitants of that time into thinking he is a magician--and soon uses his knowledge of modern technology to become a magician in earnest stunning the English of the Early Middle Ages with such feats as demolitions fireworks and the shoring up of a holy well. Twains fascination appears in his time traveler (from contemporary America yet!) using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. As with all works of a master like Twain we highly recommend this novel -- but just between us this book is a lot of fun too. Go ahead read it now.