The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today is an 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner satirizing the greed and political corruption of post-Civil War America. In fact, the term “gilded age,” commonly given to the era, comes from the title of this book. Twain and Warner derived the term from a passage in Shakespeare’s King John (1595): "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily… is wasteful and ridiculous excess." In other words, to gild an already-beautiful lily is excessive and wasteful, much like the defining characteristics of the age described by Twain and Warner.
Another interpretation of the title, of course, is the contrast between an ideal "Golden Age," and a less worthy "Gilded Age," as gilding is only a thin layer of gold over baser metal, so the title becomes a pejorative description of the time, events and people.
While not one of Twain’s better-known works, it has appeared in more than 100 editions since its original publication in 1873. Twain and Warner originally had planned to issue the novel with illustrations by Thomas Nast. The book is remarkable for two reasons–-it is the only novel Twain wrote with a collaborator, and its title very quickly became synonymous with graft, materialism, and corruption in public life.
History of the Collaboration
Charles Dudley Warner, a writer and editor, was a neighbor and good friend of Mark Twain in Hartford, Connecticut. According to Twain’s biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, their wives challenged Twain and Warner at dinner to write a better novel than what they were used to reading. Twain wrote the first eleven chapters, followed by twelve chapters written by Warner. Most of the remaining chapters were also written by only one of them, but the concluding chapters were attributed to joint authorship. The entire novel was completed between February and April 1873.
Contemporary critics, while praising its humor and satire, did not consider the collaboration a success because the independent stories written by each author did not mesh well. A review published in 1874 compared the novel to a badly-mixed salad dressing, in which "the ingredients are capital, the use of them faulty."
Plot Summary
The novel mainly deals with the efforts of a poor Tennessee family to get rich by finding the right time to sell the 75,000 acres of unimproved land acquired by their patriarch, Silas “Si” Hawkins. After several adventures in Tennessee, the family fails to sell the land and Si Hawkins dies. The rest of the Hawkins story line focuses on their beautiful adopted daughter, Laura. In the early 1870s, she travels to Washington, D.C. to become a lobbyist. With a Senator’s help, she enters Society and attempts to persuade Congressmen to require the federal government to purchase the land.
A parallel story written by Warner concerns two young upper-class men, Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly, who seek their fortunes in land a different way. They join a trip to survey land in Tennessee in order to acquire it for speculation. Philip is a good-natured but rather plodding fellow. He is in love with Ruth Bolton, a feminist and aspiring doctor. Henry is a natural lobbyist and salesman, charming but superficial.
The theme of the novel is that the lust for getting rich through land speculation pervades society: this includes the Hawkinses, Philip and Henry, and Ruth’s educated, wealthy father (who cannot turn down his acquaintances’ money-making schemes).
The Hawkins sections were written by Twain; these include several humorous sketches. Examples are the steamboat race that leads to a wreck (Chapter 4) and Laura’s toying with a clerk in a Washington bookstore (Chapter 36). Notable too is the comic presence throughout the book of the eternally optimistic and eternally broke Micawber-like character, Colonel Beriah Sellers. (The character was called Escol Sellers in the first edition and changed when George Escol Sellers of Philadelphia objected. A real Beriah Sellers also turned up causing Twain to use the name Mulberry Sellers when writing The American Claimant.)
The main action of the story takes place in Washington, D.C., and satirizes the greed and corruption of the governing class. Twain also satirizes the social pretensions of the newly rich. Laura’s Washington visitors include "Mrs. Patrique Oreille (pronounced O-rey)," the wife of "a wealthy Frenchman from Cork."
The book does not touch on other themes now associated with the "Gilded Age” period and its literature, such as industrialization, corporations, and urban political machines. This may be because this book was written at the very beginning of the period.
In the end, Laura fails to secure enough votes to pass a Congressional bill requiring federal purchase of the Hawkins land. She kills her married lover but is found not guilty of the crime with the help of a sympathetic jury and a clever lawyer. However, her spirit is broken after a failed attempt at a lecturing career, and she dies regretting her fall from youth’s innocence. Washington Hawkins, the eldest son, who has drifted through life on his father’s early promise that he would be “one of the richest men in the world,” finally gives up the family’s ownership of the still unimproved land when he cannot afford to pay the tax bill of $180. He appears to be ready to give up his passivity: "The spell is broken, the life-long curse is ended!" Philip, using his diligently acquired engineering skills, finds coal on land purchased by Ruth’s father, seems to have won Ruth’s heart, and appears headed for a prosperous and conventionally happy domestic life. Henry and Sellers, presumably, will continue to live gaily by their wits while others pay their bills.
[Adapted from “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” (License)]
Full Text of The Gilded Age:
Part 1: Chapters 1-9
Chapter 1: Squire Hawkins and His Tennessee Land—He Decides to Remove to Missouri
Chapter 2: He Meets With and Adopts the Boy Clay
Chapter 3: Uncle Daniel’s Apparition and PrayeR
Chapter 4: The Steamboat Explosion
Chapter 5: Adoption of the Little Girl Laura—Arrival at Missouri—Reception by Colonel Beriah Sellers
Chapter 6: Trouble and Darkness in the Hawkins Family—Proposed Sale of the Tennessee Land
Chapter 7: Colonel Sellers at Home—His Wonderful Clock and Cure for Rheumatism
Chapter 8: Colonel Sellers Makes Known His Magnificent Speculation Schemes and Astonishes Washington Hawkins
Chapter 9: Death of Judge Hawkins
Part Two: Chapters 10-18
Chapter 10: Laura Hawkins Discovers a Mystery in Her Parentage and Grows Morbid Under the Village Gossip
Chapter 11: A Dinner with Col Sellers—Wonderful Effects of Raw Turnips
Chapter 12: Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly—Arrangements to Go West as Engineers
Chapter 13: Rail—Road Contractors and Party Traveling—Philip and Harry form the Acquaintance of Col Sellers
Chapter 14: Ruth Bolton and Her Parents
Chapter 15: Visitors of the Boltons—Mr Bigler "Sees the Legislature"—Ruth Bolton Commences Medical Studies
Chapter 16: The Engineers Detained at St Louis—Off for Camp—Reception by Jeff
Chapter 17: The Engineer Corps Arrive at Stone’s Landing
Chapter 18: Laura and Her Marriage to Colonel Selby—Deserted and Returns to Hawkeye
Part 3: Chapters 19-27
Chapter 19: Harry Brierly Infatuated With Laura and Proposes She Visit Washington
Chapter 20: Senator Abner Dilwortliy Visits Hawkeye—Addresses the People and Makes the Acquaintance of Laura 186
Chapter 21: Ruth Bolton at Fallkill Seminary—The Montagues—Ruth Becomes Quite Gay—Alice Montague
Chapter 22: Philip and Harry Visit Fallkill—Harry Does the Agreeable to Ruth
Chapter 23: Harry at Washington Lobbying For An Appropriation For Stone’s Landing —Philip in New York Studying Engineering
Chapter 24: Washington and Its Sights—The Appropriation Bill Reported From the Committee and Passed
Chapter 25: Energetic Movements at Stone’s Landing—Everything Booming—A Grand Smash Up
Chapter 26: The Boltons—Ruth at Home—Visitors and Speculations
Chapter 27: Col Sellers Comforts His Wife With His Views on the Prospects
Part 4: Chapters 28-36
Chapter 28: Visit to Headquarters in Wall Street—How Appropriations Are Obtained and Their Cost
Chapter 29: Philip’s Experience With the Rail—Road Conductor—Surveys His Mining Property
Chapter 30: Laura and Col Sellers Go To Washington On Invitation of Senator Dilworthy
Chapter 31: Philip and Harry at the Boltons’—Philip Seriously Injured—Ruth’s First Case of Surgery
Chapter 32: Laura Becomes a Famous Belle at Washington
Chapter 33: Society in Washington—The Antiques, the Parvenus, and the Middle Aristocracy
Chapter 34: Grand Scheme For Disposing of the Tennessee Land—Laura and Washington Hawkins Enjoying the Reputation of Being Millionaires
Chapter 35: About Senators—Their Privileges and Habits
Chapter 36: An Hour in a Book Store
Part 5: Chapters 37-45
Chapter 37: Representative Buckstone and Laura’s Strategic Coquetry
Chapter 38: Reception Day in Washington—Laura Again Meets Col. Selby and the Effect Upon Her
Chapter 39: Col. Selby Visits Laura and Effects a Reconciliation
Chapter 40: Col. Sellers’ Career in Washington—Laura’s Intimacy With Col. Selby is Talked About
Chapter 41: Harry Brierly Becomes Entirely Infatuated With Laura—Declares His Love and Gets Laughed At
Chapter 42: How The Honorable Mr. Trollop Was Induced to Vote For Laura’s Bill
Chapter 43: Progress of the Bill in the House
Chapter 44: Philip in Washington—Visits Laura
Chapter 45: Philip in Washington—Visits Laura
Part 6: Chapters 46-54
Chapter 46: Disappearance of Laura, and Murder of Col. Selby in New York
Chapter 47: Laura in the Tombs and Her Visitors
Chapter 48: Mr. Bolton Says Yes Again—Philip Returns to the Mines
Chapter 49: The Coal Vein Found and Lost Again—Philip and the Boltons—Elated and Then Cruelly Disappointed 443
Chapter 50: Philip Visits Fallkill and Proposes Studying Law With Mr. Montague—The Squire Invests in the Mine—Ruth Declares Her Love for Philip
Chapter 50: Col Sellers Enlightens Washington Hawkins on the Customs of Congress
Chapter 50: How Senator Dilworthy Advanced Washington’s Interests
Chapter 50: Senator Dilworthy Goes West to See About His Re—election—He Becomes a Shining Light
Chapter 50: The Trial of Laura for Murder
Part 7: Chapters 55-63
Chapter 50: The Trial Continued—Evidence of Harry Brierly
Chapter 50: The Trial Continued—Col Sellers on the Stand and Takes Advantage of the Situation
Chapter 50: The Momentous Day—Startling News—Dilworthy Denounced as a Briber and Defeated—The Bill Lost in the Senate
Chapter 50: Verdict, Not Guilty!—Laura Free and Receives Propositions to Lecture—Philip back at the Mines
Chapter 50: The Investigation of the Dilworthy Bribery Case and Its Results
Chapter 60: Laura Decides on her Course—Attempts to Lecture and Fails—Found Dead in her Chair
Chapter 61: Col Sellers and Washington Hawkins Review the Situation and Leave Washington
