The Prince and the Pauper

About this edition

Two boys with the same face. One wears rags. One wears a crown. A single moment of curiosity trades their lives.

In sixteenth century London, Tom Canty is born to poverty in Offal Court, and Edward Tudor is born to silk and ceremony at Westminster. When chance brings the two boys face to face, they exchange clothes for the length of a joke. The joke does not end. The prince is driven into the streets as a lunatic who claims a throne, while the pauper sits inside a palace where every stray word he speaks becomes law.

The Prince and the Pauper was Mark Twain's first venture into historical fiction, and it remains one of his most enduring works. Beneath the disguises and the near misses lies the question Twain returns to again and again: how much of a person is rank, and how much is the person underneath it?

Inside this collector's edition

• 10+ original illustrations
• The complete, unabridged text, including the Conclusion and Twain's closing Notes on his historical sources
• An original biography of Mark Twain, written for this edition, tracing his life from Hannibal, Missouri to international fame
• Classic serif typography with embedded fonts, generous margins, and a text block designed for long, comfortable reading
• Archival quality construction in both hardcover and paperback, built for a shelf rather than a single reading

Readers who value Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will find here the same eye for hypocrisy and the same sympathy for the powerless, set against the pageantry of Tudor England.

A story of mistaken identity, hard-won mercy, and the accident of birth. Add The Prince and the Pauper: A Collector's Edition to your library today.