Publisher Description
When Hank Morgan is cracked on the head by a crowbar in 19th-century Connecticut, one of literature's most extraordinary fantasy tales begins to unfold. Humorous, devilishly insightful, and resoundingly contemporary, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court remains one of the most celebrated stories in the canon of American writing. Awakening to find himself in the England of King Arthur, Morgan discovers a world of fear, injustice, and ignorance hiding behind a Utopian mirage. The tough-minded Yankee-the embodiment of scientific knowledge-must overcome daunting obstacles, including Merlin the Magician, as he sets out to enlighten sixth-century England. Only Mark Twain's unparalleled gift for story-telling could produce this acrobatic tour de force that moves from broad comedy to biting social satire, and from the pure joy of wild high jinks to deeply probing insights into the nature of man. Norman Dietz's wry narration and wonderful comedic sense will enchant listeners for generations to come.
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About Mark Twain
Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel L. Clemens (1835–1910), was born in Florida, Missouri, and grew up in Hannibal on the west bank of the Mississippi River. He attended school briefly and then at age thirteen became a full-time apprentice to a local printer. When his older brother Orion established the Hannibal Journal, Samuel became a compositor for that paper and then, for a time, an itinerant printer. With a commission to write comic travel letters, he traveled down the Mississippi. Smitten with the riverboat life, he signed on as an apprentice to a steamboat pilot. After 1859, he became a licensed pilot, but two years later the Civil War put an end to the steam-boat traffic.
In 1861, he and his brother traveled to the Nevada Territory where Samuel became a writer for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and there, on February 3, 1863, he signed a humorous account with the pseudonym Mark Twain. The name was a river man’s term for water “two fathoms deep” and thus just barely safe for navigation.
In 1870 Twain married and moved with his wife to Hartford, Connecticut. He became a highly successful lecturer in the United States and England, and he continued to write.
About Norman Dietz
Norman Dietz is a writer, voice-over artist, and audiobook narrator. He has won numerous Earphones Awards and was named one of the fifty “Best Voices of the Century” by AudioFile magazine. He and his late wife, Sandra, transformed an abandoned ice-cream parlor into a playhouse, which served “the world’s best hot fudge sundaes” before and after performances. The founder of Theatre in the Works, he lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.