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MonkeyNotes-The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
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In 1884, Twain established his own publishing company and
published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, considered by
many to be his best work. Huck Finn begins as a boyish adventure
in the vein of Tom Sawyer, but soon develops into a morally-
charged coming of age story and critique of slavery and ante-
bellum Southern culture. In 1889, he published A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur's Court, another historical novel combining
Twain's by now well-established formula of humorous satire and
sharp-edged social criticism.
Twain's last years were rocky. He was never a good businessman,
and in 1894, after his publishing firm failed and a number of
financial speculations had lost money, he went bankrupt. He
recovered his wealth with a world lecture tour and the publication
of several more works, including The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead
Wilson (1894) and Following the Equator (1897). During this
period, however, tragedy struck his family. His eldest daughter
died of meningitis, his youngest developed epilepsy, and his wife
became a semi-invalid. Twain was by this time one of the most
respected and acclaimed public figures of the day. He became
increasingly bitter and pessimistic toward the end of his life,
however, especially after his wife's death in 1904, and spoke out
more and more on what he regarded as the evils of the era, most
notably the Phillipine-American War and European imperialism in
the Congo. Twain succumbed to an illness and died on April 21,
1910. In his death, America and the literary world lost a great
novelist, humorist, and social critic.
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