At the beginning of Pudd\'nhead Wilson a young slave woman, fearing for her infant\'s son\'s life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master\'s.
Written in 1894, Pudd\'nhead Wilson glistens with characteristic Twain humor, with suspense, and with pointed irony: a gem among the author\'s later works..
Seething with the undercurrents of antebellum southern culture, the book is a savage indictment in which the real criminal is society, and racial prejudice and slavery are the crimes.
Yet it is not a mystery novel.
On its surface, Pudd\'nhead Wilson possesses all the elements of an engrossing nineteenth-century mystery: reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, a suspenseful courtroom drama, and a surprising, unusual solution.
From this rather simple premise Mark Twain fashioned one of his most entertaining, funny, yet biting novels.
At the beginning of Pudd\'nhead Wilson a young slave woman, fearing for her infant\'s son\'s life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master\'s
