Read more
Zusatztext “Twain was . . . enough of a genius to build his morality into his books! with humor and wit and—in the case of The Prince and the Pauper —wonderful plotting.” —E. L. Doctorow Informationen zum Autor Mark Twain (1835-1910), fæddur Samuel Langhorne Clemens, var bandarískur rithöfundur, húmoristi og fyrirlesari þekktur fyrir gáfur sínar og lifandi lýsingu á bandarísku lífi á 19. öld. Hann er almennt talinn einn merkasti bandaríski rithöfundurinn. Verk Twain kanna oft þemu um kynþátt, samfélag og siðferði. Meðal frægustu skáldsagna hans eru Ævintýri Tom Sawyer og Ævintýri Huckleberry Finns, sem þykja meistaraverk bandarískra bókmennta. Klappentext Set in sixteenth-century England, Mark Twain's classic "tale for young people of all ages” features two identical-looking boys—a prince and a pauper—who trade clothes and step into each other's lives. While the urchin, Tom Canty, discovers luxury and power, Prince Edward, dressed in rags, roams his kingdom and experiences the cruelties inflicted on the poor by the Tudor monarchy. As Christopher Paul Curtis observes in his Introduction, The Prince and the Pauper is "funny, adventurous, and exciting, yet also chock-full of . . . exquisitely reasoned harangues against society's ills.” This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the Mark Twain Project edition, which is the approved text of the Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association. Leseprobe Chapter I The Birth of the Prince and the Pauper In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him. All England wanted him, too. England had so longed for him, and hoped for him, and prayed God for him, that now that he was really come, the people went nearly mad for joy. Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed each other and cried; everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich and poor, feasted and danced, and sang, and got very mellow?and they kept this up for days and nights together. By day, London was a sight to see, with gay banners waving from every balcony and house-top, and splendid pageants marching along. By night it was again a sight to see, with its great bonfires at every corner and its troops of revelers making merry around them. There was no talk in all England but of the new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales, who lay lapped in silks and satins, unconscious of all this fuss, and not knowing that great lords and ladies were tending him and watching over him?and not caring, either. But there was no talk about the other baby, Tom Canty, lapped in his poor rags, except among the family of paupers whom he had just come to trouble with his presence. Chapter II Tom's Early Life Let us skip a number of years. London was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town-for that day. It had a hundred thousand inhabitants-some think double as many. The streets were very narrow, and crooked, and dirty, especially in the part where Tom Canty lived, which was not far from London Bridge. The houses were of wood, with the second story projecting over the first, and the third sticking its elbows out beyond the second. The higher the houses grew, the broader they grew. They were skeletons of strong criss-cross beams, with solid material between, coated with plaster. The beams were painted red or blue or black, according to the owner's taste, and this gave the houses a very picturesque look. The windows were small, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened outward, on hinges, like doors. The house which Tom's father lived in was up a foul little pocket called Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane. It was small, decayed, and ricketty, but it was pack...
