This critical edition publishes—for the first time anywhere—the original manuscript and revised versions of Pudd’nhead Wilson.
Mark Twain’s story of the antebellum South, first published in 1894, continues to prompt conversations about race and the dire legacy of American slavery. At its heart is Roxy, a mixed-race woman enslaved to a wealthy Missouri family. To save her infant son (whose father was white) from being ‘sold down the river, ‘ Roxy switches him in the cradle with her master’s son, setting in motion a train of ironic and bitter events. With its mixture of farce, social commentary, tragedy, and satire,
Pudd’nhead Wilson has come to be one of Mark Twain’s most-read and most-studied works.
But few have read the original
Pudd’nhead Wilson. The text familiar since 1894, as editor Benjamin Griffin shows, was heavily edited and censored—first by the author himself under pressure from family and friends, then by his publishers. Now the Mark Twain Project makes available the full text of the Morgan Library manuscript (the original version), together with a critical text of the revised version, stripped of the changes imposed by Mark Twain’s editors and publishers—two fascinating ways to encounter this troubled and troubling novel.
Tabella dei contenuti
Contents
About the Texts in This Volume
Abbreviations Used in This Volume
Offensive Language in Pudd’nhead Wilson
Acknowledgments
PUDD’NHEAD WILSON: A TALE. THE MORGAN MANUSCRIPT VERSION
Addenda to the Morgan Manuscript
PUDD’NHEAD WILSON: A TALE. THE REVISED VERSION
THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS: A POSTSCRIPT TO PUDD’NHEAD WILSON
EXPLANATORY NOTES
The Morgan Manuscript Version
The Revised Version
“Those Extraordinary Twins”
APPENDIXES
A. MS Berg: Contents and Numbering
B. MS Morgan: Contents and Numbering
C. Mark Twain’s Working Notes
D. Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar for 1894
E. Contract with the American Publishing Company
F. American Publishing Company Advertising Flyer
G. Illustrating Pudd’nhead Wilson
H. [“The Man with Negro Blood”]
Introduction
TEXTUAL APPARATUS
Note on the Texts
Guide to the Textual Apparatus
Description of Source Documents
Emendations and Historical Collations:
The Morgan Manuscript Version
The Revised Version
“Those Extraordinary Twins”
Word Division in This Volume
References
Circa l’autore
Benjamin Griffin is an editor at the Mark Twain Project, which is housed within the Mark Twain Papers in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. For more than four decades the Project has been producing a complete scholarly edition of everything the author wrote. Griffin's previous editorial credits include the three volumes of the best-selling Autobiography of Mark Twain.
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