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| The Prince and the Pauper (Signet Classics) | 
| Author: Mark Twain
Creator: Everett Emerson
Publisher: Signet Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $3.95
Buy New: $1.15
You Save: $2.80 (71%)
New (36) from $1.15
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 73584
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reissue
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0451528352
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.4
EAN: 9780451528353
ASIN: 0451528352
Publication Date: May 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A pauper caught up in the pomp of the royal court.
A prince wandering horror-stricken through the lower depths of English society.
Out of the theme of switched identities, Mark Twain fashioned both a scathing attack upon social hypocrisy and injustice, and an irresistible comedy imbued with the sense of high-spirited play that belongs to his happiest creative period.
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| Customer Reviews:
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER by Mark Twain July 20, 2008
The Prince and the Pauper is Mark Twain's historical novel of mistaken identity. In it, Prince Edward and a filthy, destitute urchin who looks exactly like him inadvertently switch places. The majority of the book is spent following the boys, particularly Edward, as they attempt (or not) to regain their rightful places.
This book features numerous historical characters, and Twain researched them and the time period well. There is a great deal of social commentary here, as Twain has quite a lot to say about some of the more ruthless laws that England has had. He also delivers a rather ironic commentary on the social classes of the day.
The Prince and the Pauper is entertaining, although it suffers from slow pacing. There's entirely too much time spent with people carrying on about how each imposter has gone mad, and how he must be humored, and how this will put him to rights again. It grows tiresome, as does Edward's continual attempts to assert his kingly rights while dressed in rags. His learning curve is a straight line.
All in all, The Prince and the Pauper is an entertaining enough book, and certainly it inspired innumerable inferior derivatives like few works have, but it doesn't quite measure up to Twain's later work of historical fiction, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
 There's shame of it - not in Heathenesse, but Christian Church July 15, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is a sublime `drama' of errors. The prince and the pauper change clothes and are mistaken by the whole population for one another. The prince lives a life of a vagabond and the pauper a royal one. In other words, all men are equal; one has only to change the garments. And, `So evanescent and unstable are men's works in the world.'
This book gives a fair picture of England in the 16th century, worth a Defoe or a Swift: the immense chasm between the rich and the poor, a heavily biased and corrupt judicial system and extremely cruel punishment. `It was a crime to be hungry in England.'
People were hanged for trifling larcenies and slowly boiled for alleged poisoning. `Witches' were burnt at the stake: `My good old blameless mother strove to earn bread by nursing the sick; one of these died, the doctors knew not how, so my mother was burnt for a witch, whilst my babes looked on and wailed ... drink to the merciful English law that delivered her from the English hell!'
The rich chased their farmers away by foreclosures (changing farms in sheep ranges), making instantly beggars of them. They risked heavily to be sold as slaves.
This book is a bittersweet Breughelian comedy about human injustice, cruelty and ultimately generosity.
Not to be missed.
Extremely difficult March 24, 2006
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is one of the most difficult books I have ever read. If you can understand it then it's a very good book but also confusing and you may have difficulty following the story line.
What I think of The Prince and the Pauper November 14, 2004
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
I read the book The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain. It is a book about Edward, the Prince of Wales, and Tom, a poor boy from the streets of London. Tom ventures out to the palace to meet a real prince, which was his lifelong desire. Edward rescues Tom from a crowd that jeered at him because of he was clothed in rags. The two become friends. They switch clothes and realize that they look exactly alike! But then everyone mistakes Edward for being the poor boy and Tom for being the prince. The boys are separated.
Tom is thought to be the Prince by everyone in the palace. When Henry VIII dies, Tom is declared Edward VI, King of England. He denies it and tries to tell them he is a pauper, but they think he is mad and teach him what he needs to know to act like a king. Tom learns to enjoy being king, but wants to return to his home and family.
Edward goes on a quest to find his way back to the kingdom and Tom. During his adventure, he meets Miles Hendon, a kind fellow who was on a journey to his home, for he had finally gotten out of a war he was fighting. Miles rescues him from another crowd that is about to throw him into the Thames River. He decides to take Edward in with him. Together, they travel to Miles' old home and then to the palace to declare Edward's rightful place as the prince.
I enjoyed this book very much. It has got a straightforward theme: Don't judge a book by its cover. I would recommend this book to either teens or adults, since Twain uses some hard-to-understand archaic English words like "hither" and "thither". This book is book is not easy to read, but has interesting adventures.
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