A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 historical novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Some early editions are titled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.
In the book, a Yankee engineer from Connecticut named Hank Morgan receives a severe blow to the head and is somehow transported in time and space to England during the reign of King Arthur. After some initial confusion and his capture by one of Arthur's knights, Hank realizes that he is actually in the past, and he uses his knowledge to make people believe that he is a powerful magician. He becomes a rival of Merlin, who appears to be little more than a fraud, and gains the trust of King Arthur. Hank attempts to modernize the past in order to make people's lives better. Hank is disgusted by how the Barons treat the commoners and tries to implement democratic reforms, but in the end, he is unable to prevent the death of Arthur. Hank declares England a republic, but the Catholic Church, growing fearful of his wealth and power, issues an interdict against him.
Twain wrote the book as a burlesque of Romantic notions of chivalry after being inspired by a dream in which he was a knight himself, severely inconvenienced by the weight and cumbersome nature of his armour. It is a satire of feudalism and monarchy that also celebrates homespun ingenuity and democratic values while questioning the for-profit ideals of capitalism and outcomes of the Industrial Revolution. Twain strongly praises the French Revolution, defending the Reign of Terror as a minor problem compared to the monarchy. It is among several works by Twain and his contemporaries that mark the transition from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era of socioeconomic discourse. It is often cited as a formative example of the fledgling time travel genre.
Plot
Hank Morgan, a 19th-century resident of East Hartford, Connecticut, after a blow to the head, awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England, where he meets King Arthur.
Many passages are quoted directly from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a late medieval collection of Arthurian legends that constitutes one of the main sources on the myth of King Arthur and Camelot. The frame narrator is a 19th-century man (ostensibly Mark Twain himself) who meets Hank Morgan in modern times and begins reading Hank's book in the museum in which they meet. Later, characters in the story retell parts of it in Malory's original language. A chapter on medieval hermits also draws from the work of William Edward Hartpole Lecky.
Introduction to the "stranger"
The story begins as a first-person narrative in Warwick Castle, where a man details his recollection of a tale told to him by an "interested stranger" personified as a knight through his simple language and familiarity with ancient armor.
After a brief tale of Sir Lancelot of Camelot and his role in slaying two giants from the third-person narrative, taken directly from Le Morte d'Arthur, Hank Morgan enters and is persuaded to reveal more of his story. Hank is a superintendent because of his proficiency in firearms manufacturing, with 2,000 subordinates. During a disagreement with his subordinates, he sustains a head injury when a man named "Hercules" hits him with a crowbar.
Hank wakes up underneath an oak tree, having no idea how he got there. Hank soon encounters the knight Sir Kay. Kay challenges him to a joust, which is quickly lost by the unarmed, unarmored Hank as he scuttles up a tree. Kay captures Hank and leads him towards Camelot Castle. Upon recognizing that he has traveled back to the 6th century, Hank realizes that he is the de facto smartest person on Earth and that with his knowledge, he should soon be running things.
Hank is ridiculed at Arthur's court for his strange appearance and dress, most vehemently by Merlin, and is sentenced to burn at the stake on June 21. By a stroke of luck, the date coincides with a historical solar eclipse in 528, of which Hank had learned in his earlier life. In prison, he sends a boy he christens Clarence (whose real name is Amyas le Poulet) to inform the king that he will blot out the sun if he is executed. Hank believes it is June 20; however, it is actually the 21st when he makes his threat, the day that the eclipse will occur at 12:03 p.m. When the king decides to let him burn, the eclipse catches Hank by surprise. However, he quickly convinces the people that he caused it. He makes a bargain with the king, is released, and becomes the second most powerful person in the kingdom. (Twain may have drawn inspiration from a historical incident in which Christopher Columbus exploited foreknowledge of a lunar eclipse.)
Hank is given the position of principal minister to the king and treated by all with the utmost fear and awe. He proclaims that his only income will be taken as a percentage of any increase in the kingdom's gross national product, from his efforts as Arthur's chief minister.
The takeover Hank learns about medieval practices and superstitions. With his superior knowledge, he is able to outdo alleged sorcerers and miracle-working church officials. Soon after the eclipse, people begin gathering, hoping to see Hank perform another miracle. Merlin, jealous of Hank having replaced him as both the king's principal adviser and the most powerful sorcerer of the realm, begins spreading rumors that Hank is a fake. Hank secretly manufactures gunpowder and a lightning rod, plants explosive charges in Merlin's tower, places the lightning rod at the top, and runs a wire to the explosive charges. He then announces that he will soon call down fire from heaven and destroy Merlin's tower, challenging Merlin to use his sorcery to prevent it. Lightning strikes the rod, triggering the explosive charges and leveling the tower, further diminishing Merlin's reputation.
Hank uses his authority and knowledge to industrialize the country behind the backs of the ruling class. His assistant is Clarence, whom he educates, gradually lets in on most of his secrets, and eventually comes to rely on heavily. Hank sets up schools to teach 19th-century ideas and modern English, thereby removing the new generation from the stricture of medieval life, and constructs hidden factories to produce modern tools and weapons. He carefully selects the individuals he allows to enter his factories and schools. His followers refer to him as Boss and it's by this moniker he chooses to go by for much of the story.
As Hank gradually adjusts, he begins to attend medieval tournaments. A misunderstanding causes Sir Sagramore to challenge him to a duel to the death. The combat is to take place when Sagramore returns from his quest for the Holy Grail. Hank accepts. He undertakes an adventure with a wandering girl named the Demoiselle Alisande a la Carteloise, nicknamed "Sandy" by Hank, to save her royal "mistresses" held captive by ogres. On the way, Hank encounters Morgan le Fay. The "princesses", "ogres", and "castles" are all revealed to actually be pigs owned by peasant swineherds, but to Sandy, they still appear as royalty. Hank buys the pigs from the peasants, and the two depart for Camelot.
On the way, they find a traveling group of pilgrims headed for the Valley of Holiness. Another group of pilgrims, however, comes from that direction and bears the news that the valley's famous fountain has run dry. According to legend, long ago, the fountain had gone dry as soon as the monks of the valley's monastery built a bath with it. The bath was destroyed and the water instantly returned, but this time, it has stopped with no clear cause. Hank is begged to restore the fountain, although Merlin is already trying to do so. When Merlin fails, he claims that the fountain has been corrupted by a demon and that it will never flow again. Hank procures assistants from Camelot, who bring along a pump and fireworks. They repair the fountain and Hank "banishes" the demon. The fountain restored, Hank goes on to debunk another magician who claims to be able to tell what any person in the world is doing, including King Arthur. Hank knows via telephone that the king is riding out to see the restored fountain and not "resting from the chase" as the false prophet had claimed, and the king arrives in the valley just as Hank predicted.
Hank decides to travel among the poor disguised as a peasant to find out how they truly live. King Arthur joins him, but has extreme difficulty in acting like a peasant convincingly. Arthur becomes somewhat disillusioned by seeing for himself the standard of life of his subjects. The two encounter villagers in a minor fiefdom of Arthur's realm, where Arthur is taken as a madman when he makes several outlandish and erroneous comments about agriculture. Hank attempts to teach the villagers about a rudimentary value theory of wages that they rebuff and in his zeal to win the argument, accidentally acknowledges that a member of his audience overpaid a worker, a capital offense. The audience then forms a mob that chases Hank and Arthur down. They seem to be delivered from danger when a nobleman invites them into his entourage, but he enslaves them and sells them to another particularly ruthless enslaver, who takes them to London.
Hank steals a piece of metal in London and uses it to create a makeshift lockpick. However, before he can free the king, a man enters their quarters in the dark. Mistaking him for the slave driver, Hank starts a fight with him. They are both arrested. Hank lies his way out, but in his absence, the real slave driver has discovered Hank's escape. Since Hank was the most valuable slave, he was due to be sold the next day. The man becomes enraged and begins beating his other slaves, who fight back and kill him. All the slaves, including the king, will be hanged as soon as Hank is found. Hank is captured, but he and Arthur are rescued by a party of knights led by Lancelot, riding bicycles. Then, the king becomes extremely bitter against slavery and vows to abolish it when they get free, much to Hank's delight.
Sagramore returns from his quest and fights Hank, who defeats him and seven others, including Galahad and Lancelot, using a lasso. When Merlin steals Hank's lasso, Sagramore returns to challenge him again. This time, Hank kills him with a revolver. He proceeds to challenge the knights of Britain to attack him en masse, which they do. After he kills nine more knights with his revolvers, the rest break and flee. The next day, Hank reveals his 19th-century infrastructure to the country.
Interdict Three years later, Hank has married Sandy, and they have a baby. In Hank's absence, Sandy chooses to name the baby after what she believes to be the name of her husband's lost beloved whose name he would say in his sleep. Unbeknownst to her, his American love was a telephone operator and Sandy named their baby after how Hank would greet her, "Hello, Central!". When Hello-Central falls critically ill, Hank's doctors advise him to take his family overseas while the baby recovers. In reality, it is a ploy by the Catholic Church to get Hank out of the country. During the weeks that Hank is absent, Arthur discovers Guinevere's infidelity with Lancelot. That causes a war between Lancelot and Arthur, who is eventually killed by Sir Mordred.
The Church then places the land under interdict, causing the people to revolt against Hank. Hank sees that something is wrong and returns to Britain. Clarence informs him of the war. As time goes on, Clarence gathers 52 teenage cadets, who are to fight against all of Britain. Hank's band fortifies itself in Merlin's Cave with a minefield, electric wire, and Gatling guns. The Church sends an army of 30,000 knights to attack them, but they are slaughtered by the cadets.