Pudd'nhead Wilson: A Novel of Identity and Justice in the American South

A sharp and darkly comic novel of identity, race, and justice set in the antebellum American South. Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson examines the fragility of social order through a tale of switched identities, legal intrigue, and the consequences of inherited status.

Set in the Mississippi River town of Dawson's Landing, the novel turns on an act of desperation: a slave mother secretly exchanges her light-skinned child with her master's son, setting in motion a chain of events that unfolds ov...