A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

In 1879 Colt Arms Factory superintendent Hank Morgan gets a crowbar to the head and wakes up in King Arthurs England of AD 528 replete with steel-plated knights hefty horses blushing ladies vast castles and a great oaken table the shape and size of a circus ring. Under this charming veneer roils a cesspit of slavery superstition criminal injustices legally wrought by Church as well as State and hopeless despair.Whatever is an epitome of Yankee practicality and American sensibilities to do? Why conquer the kingdom of course and drag it kicking and screaming into the nineteenth century.If you only know the various comic-book and film adaptations of Mark Twains A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court youre liable to imagine the book as a laugh riot an exercise in anachronistic fun. Knights on bicycles! Knights in armor playing baseball! A newspaper named The Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano! In fact Twains 1889 novel is seldom what wed call funny. Instead its more the literary equivalent of the Fourth of July--a farrago of politics preaching and fireworks. The Washington PostIncludes illustrations by Daniel Carter Beard created for the original 1889 edition.