Pudd'nhead Wilson

Set in the antebellum Missouri town of Dawson's Landing, Mark Twain's novel follows Roxana, an enslaved woman who switches her light-skinned infant son with her master's white baby in an effort to secure the child's future. The boys grow up under swapped identities, while the local lawyer David Wilson, nicknamed Pudd'nhead, pursues his interest in fingerprints. Twain uses the resulting tangle of family, race, and inheritance to examine slavery and social hypocrisy.

by Mark Twain

Penguin Publishing Group · First published 1894 · 192 pages