The ungentle laws and customs touched upon in this tale are historical, and the epis6des which are used to illustrate them are also historical. It is not pretended that these laws and customs existed in England in the sixth century; no, it is only pretended that inasmuch as they existed in the English and other civilizations of far later times, it is safe to consider that it is no libel upon the sixth century to suppose them to have been in practice in that day also. One is quite justified in inferring that wherever one of these laws or customs was lacking in that remote time, its place was competently filled by a worse one.……
This novel tells the story of Hank Morgan, the quintessential self-reliant New Englander, who brings to KingArthur"s Age of Chivalry the "great and beneficent" miracles of nineteenth-century engineering and American ingenuity, Through the collision of past and present, Twain exposes the insubstantiality of both utopias, destroying the myth of the romantic ideal as welt as his own era"s faith in scientific and social "progress."
Preface
A Word of Explanation
CHAPTER 1
Camelot
CHAPTER 2
King Arthur's Court
CHAPTER 3
Knights of the Table Round
CHAPTER 4
Sir Dinadan the Humorist
CHAPTER 5
An Inspiration
CHAPTER 6
The Eclipse
CHAPTER 7
Merlin's Tower
CHAPTER 8
The Boss
CHAPTER 9
The Tournament
CHAPTER 10
Beginnings of Civilization
CHAPTER 11
The Yankee in Search of Adventures
CHAPTER 12
Slow Torture
CHAPTER 13
Freemen!
CHAPTER 14
"Defend Thee, Lord!"
CHAPTER 15
Sandy's Tale
CHAPTER 16
Morgan Le Fay
CHAPTER 17
A Royal Banquet
CHAPTER 18
In the Queen's Dungeons
CHAPTER 19
Knight-Errantry as a Trade
CHAPTER 20
The Ogre's Castle
CHAPTER 21
The Pilgrims
CHAPTER 22
The Holy Fountain
CHAPTER 23
Restoration of the Fountain
CHAPTER 24
A Rival Magician
CHAPTER 25
A Competitive Examination
CHAPTER 26
The First Newspaper
CHAPTER 27
The Yankee and the King Travel Incognito
CHAPTER 28
Drilling the King
CHAPTER 29
The Smallpox Hut
CHAPTER 30
The Tragedy of the Manor House
CHAPTER 31
Marco
CHAPTER 32
Dowley's Humiliation
CHAPTER 33
Sixth-Century Political Economy
CHAPTER 34
The Yankee and the King Sold as Slaves
CHAPTER 35
A Pitiful Incident
CHAPTER 36
An Encounter in the Dark
CHAPTER 37
An Awful Predicament
CHAPTER 38
Sir Launcelot and Knights to the Rescue
CHAPTER 39
The Yankee's Fight with the Knights
CHAPTER 40
Three Years Later
CHAPTER 41
The Interdict
CHAPTER 42
War!
CHAPTER 43
The Battle of the Sand Belt
CHAPTER-44
A Postscript by Clarence
Final E S. by M. T