Mark Twain, David Baldacci, Louis J. Budd: Pudd'nhead Wilson (1869, Penguin Publishing Group)
192 pages
English language
Published Sept. 30, 1869 by Penguin Publishing Group.
A young slave woman attempting to protect her son from the horrors of slavery, switches her light-skinned infant with the master's white son. This novel features a literary first — the use of fingerprinting to solve a crime.
Does not have a chapter on 'Face' in the culture section, and I'd have liked a bit more information on some things. Still very informative.
Be sure to read the companion story Those Extraordinary Twins as well, perhaps first. Twain explains that while writing this novel that he found he had given birth to two stories and had no choice but to separate them. Indeed, Angelo and Luigi were conjoined in T.E.T. but separated for Pudd'nhead Wilson, and while the reader can be persuaded of the soundness of this idea, I found the ridiculous themes and situations of T.E.T. based on their conjunction to be wanting in P.H. These two stories go together brilliantly, while clearly needing to be separate. Just like those Italian twins!
