by Mark Twain
14 (p.34) “Lord Hertford”: Edward Seymour (1506?-1552), earl of Hertford, was Edward’s ambitious, unscrupulous uncle. He served as protector of the realm during Edward’s reign, making him a de facto king, but he fell from favor and was beheaded on a felony charge in 1552.
15 (p. 39) the Lord Mayor’s banquet: Lord Mayor is the title of the mayor (principal administrator) of the City of London; he presides over the primary governing bodies, the Court of Aldermen, and the Court of Common Council.
16 (p. 39) Lord Guilford Dudley: A Twain anachronism: Dudley would have been about thirteen years old at this time. In 1553 he would marry Lady Jane Grey (see note 9).
17 (p. 40) Sir William Herbert: The brother-in-law of the reigning queen, Catherine Parr (1512-1548), Henry VIII’s sixth and last wife, Sir William (1501?-1570) was a close adviser to the king.
18 (p. 43) Its furniture was all of massy gold, and... priceless, since they were the work of Benvenuto: Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) was an Italian goldsmith and sculptor whose decorative objects have been highly prized from his own day to ours; his highly entertaining Autobiography is today considered a classic.
19 (p. 45) Madam Parr, the queen: The reference is to Catherine Parr (1512-1548), Henry VIII’s sixth and last wife.
20 (p. 47) the Lord Chancellor: Thomas Wriothesley (1505-1550) was lord chancellor of England (1544-1547) and, as such, a leading legal authority in the kingdom. He was lord keeper of the Great Seal, which will play such an important role in this book.
21 (p. 51) Garter king-at-arms: This is the title of the chief of the official heralds of England and of the Order of the Garter (see note 23).
22 (p. 52) Duke of Somerset: Another title for Sir William Herbert (see note 17).
23 (p. 52) “order of the Garter”: The highest of all the orders of chivalry, the Order of the Garter was always conferred on the Prince of Wales.
24 (p. 60) Southwark Bridge: Southwark (pronounced “SUTH-ark”) is a borough of London situated on the south bank of the Thames River.
25 (p. 62) At Guildhall: The seat of London government, the Guildhall was large and grand enough to serve as the site of lavish banquets and celebrations.
26 (p. 62) Arrived at Dowgate, the fleet was towed up the limpid Walbrook, whose channel has now been for two centuries buried out of sight under acres of buildings, to ... the center of the ancient city of London: Until it was filled in during the reign of Elizabeth I, the Walbrook was a navigable stream penetrating central London; it emptied into the Thames River at Dowgate, a dock and wharf complex.
27 (p. 62) Old, jewry: This was the principal Jewish quarter of old London.
28 (p. 64) The speaker was a sort of Don Cæsar de Bazan in dress, aspect, and bearing: This is a considerable Twain anachronism: The reference is to the penniless, but dashing seventeenth-century Spanish nobleman in Don Cesar de Bazan (1844), by French dramatist Adolphe-Philippe d’Ennery.
29 (p. 86) there was no Protector as yet: The Earl of Hertford had not yet been named protector of young Edward VI (see note 14).
30 (p. 87) “the fish-market, by Billingsgate”: In Tudor times, this large fishmarket was situated on the banks of the Thames, near Billingsgate Wharf
31 (p. 88) his “elder sister”—afterward the “Bloody Mary” of history: “Bloody Mary” would become the derogatory nickname for Edward’s half sister (see note 9).
32 (p. 97) “the hamlet of Islington”- Once a salubrious village on the outskirts of northern London, Islington is now a part of the central city.
33 (p. 98) “Wapping Old Stairs”: This is a district of the City of London on the banks of the Thames.
34 (p. 106) he supped at the Tabard inn: Situated on the south bank of the Thames, the Tabard was an ancient and famous hostelry in English history, the inn from which English poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims set out for Canterbury in his fourteenth-century masterpiece The Canterbury Tales. The inn was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, but was rebuilt and existed well into the nineteenth century.
35 (p. 127) “Another English king... in a bygone time ... the great Alfred... let the cakes burn”: The reference is to Alfred the Great (849-899), the Anglo-Saxon king of Wessex who saved his kingdom from Viking invasions. Legend has it that during one incursion Alfred was forced to flee in disguise and sought refuge in the house of a peasant woman. Not recognizing the king, she set him to menial chores, one of which was to watch over some oat cakes that were baking on the fire; so caught up was the king in his own weighty thoughts that he allowed the cakes to burn, but he did not pull rank when his hostess subjected him to a severe tongue-lashing.
36 (p. 167) “The late king is to be buried at Windsor”: Massive eleventh-century Windsor Castle, built by William the Conqueror to protect the western approaches to London, remains an official residence of the English monarch; it is the largest occupied castle in the world. Many English kings and queens, including Henry VIII, are interred in Windsor’s St. George’s Chapel.
37 (p. 182) the tall pile called the White Tower: A principal bastion of the Tower of London (see note 8), the White Tower is an imposing turreted building in the center of the complex.
38 (p. 184) The chronicler says, ... “and the whole pageant was framed with wreaths of roses, red and white”: This paragraph is an elaborate reference to the War of the Roses (1455-1485), a series of civil wars fought between the noble houses of York (whose badge was a white rose) and Lancaster (with the badge of a red rose) for control of the throne of England. In 1485 Henry Tudor (associated with the house of Lancaster) killed King Richard III at Bosworth Field and became King Henry VII, thus establishing the Tudor dynasty.
39 (p. 189) Westminster Abbey ... this memorable Coronation Day: A church of ancient foundation in Westminster, London, the Abbey has been the scene of every English coronation since 1066. It is the resting place of British kings and queens, and of renowned martial and cultural figures. Edward VI was crowned there in 1547.
40 (p. 189) Within the seat of the throne is inclosed a rough flat rock—the stone of Scone—which many generations of Scottish kings sat on to be crowned: The Stone of Scone, also called the Stone of Destiny, was the traditional stone upon which the kings of Scotland were crowned. It was taken to England by King Edward I and inserted into the English coronation throne at Westminster Abbey, signifying England’s hegemony over Scotland. The stone was the source of much resentment on the part of the Scots until it was returned to Scotland in 1996.
INSPIRED BY THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
THEATER
Mark Twain’s wife, Livy Clemens, wrote the first dramatic adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper. The family performed it at the Clemens home in Hartford, Connecticut, with Twain playing the role of Miles Hendon, the down-on-his-luck nobleman who befriends Prince Edward. The official theatrical version of the novel, adapted by Abby Sage Richardson, premiered in Philadelphia on Christmas Eve, 1889, and moved the following month to the BroadwayTheater in New York. The dual role of Tom Canty and Prince Edward was played by a young, diminutive actress, Elsie Leslie, of whom Twain was very fond. Twain’s popularity brought people to the play, but the production was only a moderate critical success. One problem cited was that of the dual role; while the trick appealed greatly to audiences, scenes from the book featuring Canty and the Prince together were omitted or altered for the stage production, and critics felt this detracted from the play’s dramatic effect.
Soon after it appeared, the play became mired in controversy when journalist Edward House filed a lawsuit against Twain, claiming the novelist had asked him to adapt The Prince and the Pauper in 1886. The high-profile case drew a tremendous amount of interest from the general public. On March 9,1890, the New York Times described the proceedings:
Mr. House could show no formal contract to dramatize ‘The Prince and the Pauper,’ but had a most formidable bundle of correspondence that had passed between himself and Mr. Clemens on the subject.... The correspondence then traced the course of
the work as it progressed in Mr. House’s hands and referred to a visit of the dramatist to the author’s home to consult over the finishing touches of the work.
The idea that is mainly responsible for whatever success ‘The Prince and the Pauper’ has attained, that of the dual role, was advanced by Mr. House in this correspondence and insisted upon. It is a strange feature of the case that this and other leading features of Mr. House’s dramatization were somehow mysteriously suggested to the mind of Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson and embodied in her dramatization.
Judge Daly ruled in favor of House, and ordered a halt on all performances of the Richardson dramatization, which by that time was on national tour. Days after the decision was handed down, Dan Frohman, the play’s manager and principal investor, reached a financial agreement with House that allowed Frohman to continue the national tour for five years. Through it all, Twain maintained his own version of history, telling the Times, “House never thought of making a play out of my book, in my opinion, until he heard that Mrs. Richardson had done it.” He eventually wrote a manuscript entitled “Concerning the Scoundrel E. H. House,” which remains unpublished.
Several theatrical versions of The Prince and the Pauper have since appeared. One, a musical, ran successfully at the off-Broadway Lamb’s Theatre in New York during the holiday seasons of 2002 and 2003. It was directed by Ray Roderick, with music and lyrics by Neil Berg, additional lyrics by Bernie Garzia, and book by Ray Roderick and Bernie Garzia.
FILM
There have been more than a dozen film versions of The Prince and the Pauper over the years, ranging from silents to made-for-television movies. The first adaptation was produced by none other than Thomas Edison. Directed by J. Searle Dawley, the two-reel The Prince and the Pauper (1909) features the only known celluloid footage of Mark Twain. Barely a minute long, the scene shows the author shambling in front of Stormfield, his house near Redding, Connecticut, smoking a pipe and sipping a drink. Several years later, Edwin Porter’s The Prince and the Pauper (1915) premiered as the first feature adaptation of a Twain novel.
Other notable adaptations include William Keighley’s The Prince and the Pauper (1937), starring Errol Flynn as Miles Hendon and twins Billy and Bobby Mauch as Tom Canty and Prince Edward. The film boasts terrific acting by the twelve-year-old stars, and focuses on character development and swashbuckling action in equal portions. Erich Wolfgang Korngold later adapted his wonderful score into a symphonic work. Twentieth-century American writer Gore Vidal, whose oeuvre includes several historical fictions, cites the movie as one of his earliest influences.
Richard Fleischer’s adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper (1978), titled Crossed Swords, lacks some of the vitality of its predecessor, despite its star-studded cast and high production values. Mark Lester, who starred in Oliver! ten years earlier, is a little long in the tooth to be convincing in the dual role of Tom Canty and Prince Edward. Charlton Heston plays Henry VIII with an American accent, and Ernest Borgnine does the same in his rendition of John Canty. Rounding out the cast are Raquel Welch as Edith, George C. Scott as the Ruffler, and Oliver Reed as Miles Hendon. Fleischer’s film, though flawed, boasts excellent cinematography, beautiful sets, and authentic costumes.
Disney’s animated feature The Prince and the Pauper (1990), directed by George Scribner, stars Mickey Mouse in the title roles. The wicked “Black Pete” plans to usurp the throne once the ailing King dies, an evil scheme that forces Donald Duck and Goofy to help the heroes hatch a plan to stop him. The vivid songs, exciting action, and droll comedy play off against the more dramatic elements, which culminate in an emotional scene between Prince Mickey and his dying father.
Famed documentary producer Ken Burns—noted for The Civil War (1990) and, Jazz (2000)—directed the biopic Mark Twain (2001). The three-and-a-half-hour film includes hundreds of photographs of Twain’s home, friends, and surroundings; interviews with scholars and writers; commentary by Hal Holbrook, star of the legendary one-man theatrical show Mark Twain Tonight!; and the film footage of Mark Twain himself from Edison’s The Prince and the Pauper. The film covers the major events in Twain’s life and serves up many pleasing anecdotes about his history and works.
FICTION
Louis Auchincloss borrowed the title of Twain’s novel for his own rags-to-riches social commentary, “The Prince and the Pauper” (1970), a short story revolving around two lawyers. Since 1947, Auchincloss has used his experience as a trust and estate lawyer on Wall Street to write more than fifty books cleverly skewering the recherché society of moneyed New Yorkers. Auchincloss, who continued to practice law throughout his half-century-long literary career, created dazzlingly accurate satires that straddle the line between wicked and tender.
In “The Prince and the Pauper” Auchincloss traces the fortunes of two lawyers: Brooks Clarkson, a senior partner born into a socially prominent family, and the virtuous Benny Galenti, a junior attorney and son of Sicilian immigrants who aspires to achieve the American Dream. Clarkson is in the process of drinking himself to death when he takes Galenti as a protégé, perhaps wishing to redeem his own spiritually empty life. Galenti’s brilliant rise matches Clarkson’s ignominious fall, but the young lawyer’s success causes him to face the same social and occupational pressures that led to Clarkson’s collapse.
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the work’s history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.
COMMENTS
H. H. BOYESEN
So far as Mark Twain is concerned, [The Prince and the Pauper] is an entirely new departure; so much so as to make it appear inappropriate to reckon it among that writer’s works. It is indisputably by Clemens; it does not seem to be by Twain,—certainly not by the Twain we have known for a dozen or more years as the boisterous and rollicking humorist, whose chief function has been to diffuse hilarity throughout English-reading communities and make himself synonymous with mirth in its most demonstrative forms. Humor, in quite sufficient proportion, this tale does assuredly contain; but it is a humor growing freely and spontaneously out of the situations represented,—a sympathetic element, which appeals sometimes shrewdly, sometimes sweetly, to the senses, and is never intrusive or unduly prominent; sometimes, indeed, a humor so tender and subdued as to surprise those who are under its spell with doubts whether smiles or tears shall be summoned to express the passing emotion.
—Atlantic Monthly (December 1881)
ATHENEUM
To the innumerable admirers of Roughing It and A Tramp Abroad, The Prince and the Pauper is likely to prove a heavy disappointment. The author, a noted representative of American humour, has essayed to achieve a serious book. The consequences are at once disastrous and amazing. The volume, which deals with England in the days of Edward VI., and is announced as “A Tale for Young People of All Ages,” is only to be described as some four hundred pages of careful tediousness, mitigated by occasional flashes of unintentional and unconscious fun. Thus Mr. Clements, who has evidently been reading history, and is anxious about local colour, not only makes a point of quoting documents, and parading authorities, and being fearfully in earnest, but does so with a look of gravity and an evident sense of responsibility that are really delicious. On the whole, however, of Mr. Clements’s many jokes, The Prince and the Pauper is incomparably the flattest and worst. To this, as a general reflection it may be added that if to convert a brilliant and engaging humourist into a dull and painful romancer be necessarily a function of the study of history, it cannot be too steadily discouraged.
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�December 24, 1881
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
The book comes upon the reading public in the shape of a revelation. Mr. Clemens is known wherever the English language is spoken as the foremost exponent of that species of humor which is peculiar enough to be called American, but which, in reality, is the humor of the broadest, and wildest, and most boisterous burlesque. Of this humor, “The Jumping Frog” is a fair specimen. In this field and in this vein, Mr. Clemens is without rival, albeit a host of writers have sprung up to pay him the tribute of imitation. In The Prince and the Pauper, however, he has made a wide departure from his old methods—so much so that the contrast presents a phase of literary development unique in its proportions and suggestions. The wild western burlesquer, the builder of elephantine exaggerations and comicalities has disappeared, and in his stead we have the true literary artist. All that is really vital in the wild humor of Mark Twain is here, but it is strengthened and refined. The incongruities are nature’s own, and they are handled with marvelous skill and deftness.
—Atlanta Constitution (December 25, 1881)
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
[Twain’s] powers as a story-teller were evident in hundreds of brief sketches before he proved them in Tom Sawyer and The Prince and the Pauper. Both of these books, aside from the strength of characterization, are fascinating as mere narratives, and I can think of no living writer who has in higher degree the art of interesting his reader from the first word. This is a far rarer gift than we imagine, and I shall not call it a subordinate charm in Mark Twain’s books, rich as they otherwise are.
—Century (September 1882)
