A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is the title of Mark Twain’s satirical 1889 novel describing the adventures of a time-traveling American transported to England during the age of King Arthur. Some early editions are entitled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. The tale lampoons both Twain’s contemporary society and then-prevalent literature that romanticized chivalry and the Middle Ages.
Like many of Twain’s works, A Connecticut Yankee pokes fun at many of the absurdities Twain observed around him. He had a particular dislike for the popular author Sir Walter Scott, blaming his kind of romanticism of battle for the southern states willingness to fight the American Civil War. He writes in Life on the Mississippi:
“It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Major or a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it was he, also, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations. For it was he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverence for rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. [...] Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war.”
This largely negative opinion of Medieval fiction shines through in Twain’s satirical approach to A Connecticut Yankee, and the book can be considered an important transitional work. The earlier, sunnier passages recall the frontier humor of his tall tales like The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, while the corrosive and negative view of human behavior in the apocalyptic latter chapters is more akin to darker, later Twain works like The Mysterious Stranger and Letters from the Earth.
[Adapted from the article “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court” (License)]
Full Text of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”
Part One: Chapters 1-6
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
Part Two: Chapters 7-11
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
Part Three: Chapters 12-16
Chapter 12: SLOW TORTURE
Chapter 13: FREEMEN!
Chapter 14: "DEFEND THEE, LORD!
Chapter 15: SANDY’S TALE
Chapter 16: MORGAN LE FAY
Part Four: Chapters 17-22
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
Part Five: Chapters 23-26
Chapter 23: RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN
Chapter 24: A RIVAL MAGICIAN
Chapter 25: A COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION
Chapter 26: THE FIRST NEWSPAPER
Part Six: Chapters 27-31
Chapter 27: THE YANKEE AND THE KING TRAVEL INCOGNITO
Chapter 28: DRILLING THE KING
Chapter 29: THE SMALL-POX HUT
Chapter 30: THE TRAGEDY OF THE MANOR-HOUSE
Chapter 31: MARCO
Part Seven: Chapters 32-35
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
Part Eight: Chapters 36-40
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
Part Nine: Chapters 41-44
Chapter 41: THE INTERDICT
Chapter 42: WAR!
Chapter 43: THE BATTLE OF THE SAND-BELT
Chapter 44: A POSTSCRIPT BY CLARENCE
