Manuscript of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Shown here are pages from the manuscript of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), which Samuel L. Clemens—better known as Mark Twain—characterized as “one vast sardonic laugh at the trivialities, the servilities of our poor human race.” The novel is a satiric fable about the inevitable defeat of progress by human nature, an attack on feudalism and monarchy, and a celebration of democratic values. The 932-page manuscript contains numerous revisions and passages suppressed from the first edition. One change indicates that Twain originally intended to locate the action in “Astolat” rather than Camelot. The moment in the novel in which Hank Morgan, its central character, discovers that he is in Camelot is memorialized on a Library Way plaque on New York City’s 41st Street, between Fifth and Park Avenues.