Mark Twain 38 min read

Installed as the kingdom's second man, the Yankee reckons with the small miseries of medieval life, the middle of Twain's satire.

This installment of Twain's 1889 classic finds Hank Morgan robed in silk and cloth-of-gold as 'the Boss,' cataloguing everything sixth-century Camelot lacks, soap, matches, mirrors, the little conveniences that make real comfort, while the comedy edges toward critique. Read it as the story deepens from fish-out-of-water farce into Twain's pointed reckoning with chivalry and its costs.

In its time

Published in 1889, during the 1880s, lost races and dying earths.

Reading it

38 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).