Publisher Description
The Prince and the Pauper is a novel by Mark Twain and was published in 1881. It tells the story of two young boys (a prince and a pauper) who exchange their role temporally. They are the same age and exactly look alike. But they have a great difference: Tom Canty is a pauper who lives with his abusive, alcoholic father in Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London, Edward Tudor is Prince of Wales and son of Henry VIII of England. Prior to meeting each other, both boys have dreams of living the life of the other. Tom, dressed as Edward, tries to deal with court customs and manners. On the other hand, Edward forces to face the brutal life of a London pauper and then becomes aware of the stark class inequality in England. Mark Twain attacks upon social hypocrisy. Also, he exposes the concept that "clothes make the man" with his satiric and irresistible comedy. This version of the book is translated by Mohsen Soleimani to Persian (Farsi) and narrated by Noro-Al-Din Djavadian. The Persian version of The Prince and the Pauper’s audiobook is published by Maktub worldwide.
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"A great little book "for children of all ages," this classic tale provides a foundation for a series of adventures and character development for both Edward and Tom Canty, plus Twain's usual scathing satire leveled at the inequities of a classed society and the absurdity of what passed and passes for justice all over the world. The only flaw I could find in the plot was that, while Tom made a fine king and showed himself very wise in, for example, his handling of the accused murderer and witches, it did not occur to him to solve the mix-up by simply issuing the equivalent of an APB for one "Tom Canty." In any case, a fine piece of satire and a good story."
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Ensiform (4 out of 5 stars)
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.