The American Claimant

Pudd'nhead Wilson

Plot

The American Claimant: A madcap romp through aristocratic Europe and freewheeling America, Twain's tale of a mad scientist overflows with ideas well ahead of their time: terraforming, fax machines, cloning, photocopiers, climate change, and many more. As Twain delves into themes of identity, moral dilemma, and cultural change, his brilliant language sweeps you along on a Monty Pythonesque crazy ride of epic proportions. Replete with some of the author's favorite plot devices - twinship, mistaken identity and role changing.

Pudd’nhead Wilson: The book was originally published in America, on 28 November 1894, as The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy of Those Extraordinary Twins. It began as a farce about Siamese twins -- two different temperaments inseparably linked in one body -- and wound up becoming an irony about two babies -- one slave, one free -- switched in their cradles.