The Prince and the Pauper - Mark Twain

ABOUT THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER Two boys exchange their clothes and their lives in Mark Twain s classic satiric comedy. They are the same age. They look alike. In fact there is but one difference between them Tom Canty is a child of the London slums Edward Tudor is heir to the throne of England. Just how insubstantial this difference really is becomes clear when a chance encounter leads to an exchange of roles with the pauper caught up in the pomp and folly of the royal court and the prince wandering horror-stricken through the lower depths of sixteenth-century English society. Out of the theme of switched identities Mark Twain has 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 most creative period. With an Afterword by Everett Emerson