By all rights, Pudd'nhead Wilson should not have been published. This isn't a novel. It is the best draft you're ever likely to read.

It tells the story of Roxy, a slave who, in a moment of desperation, exchanges her infant son with the identical boy of her Master. Hence her child, now called Tom Driscoll, is raised free and privilaged. And consequently turns into a complete horror.

That's about as much of the plot as one needs to know. It started as a farce about a different set of twins, but as he wrote it Twain was distracted by the secondary characters; so he re-wrote his novel as a tragedy without completely doing away with the old trappings.

Consequently, Pudd'nhead Wilson is many things. It is quite unpredictable. The plot leaps from one thing to another without settling. Some parts of it are very tragic, full of cruel irony. At other points, the farce elements still come through (such as during the brief cameo from the Fire Department). Though stylistically inconsistent, the hodgepodge of moods and plot threads did keep me turning the pages.

The writing herein is quite good, and Twain's wit is legendary. The cast is a fine set that interacts well, and he does an excellent job at crafting the community of Dawson's Landing.

And yet all these elements never mesh into something more. I liked this novel, but perhaps my hopes were a little too high. I was certainly not expecting it to be this messy. Characters are used; they do not live, or if they do, Twain ignores them until he has a use for them. Luigi and Angelo are introduced as if they mean something, yet are given precious little to do. Rowena's view is given for two whole chapters, then she vanishes completely. Most surprisingly, the titular character is given little to do. He emerges only when needed, and cannot be described as the main character.

The focus is placed heavily on Roxy and Tom, yet they aren't the main characters either. The true protagonist is the omniscient narrator (the author) who tells this odd little tale.

Well, I did like this. It was engrossing, I smiled at the witticisms and was even moved from time to time, as Twain had a marvelous grasp of humanity. My favorite quote from the book was this:

"When the forenoon was nearly gone, she recognized with a pang that this most splendid episode of her life was almost over, that nothing could prolong it, that nothing quite its equal could ever fall to her fortune again."

It's a pity that this book, with all its sundry elements of greatness, was a rush job that switched horses in midstream. But nevertheless, I still found it very enjoyable. ( )

As I read more Mark Twain, I become a bigger fan. Sure, this book is not among his best works, but even mediocre Twain is above so much out there. Unlike Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, in my mind, this book was a little confusing with what the message was regarding Twain's feelings on slavery. Whereas the other books had Jim as an uneducated, yet intelligent, honorable and very likeable character, the main black character in Pudd'nhead Wilson was detestable and even the secondary black character only allowed for partial sympathy regarding her actions. The plot outcome was very predictable, but it was still fun reading on as Twain took me there. The most enjoyable part of the book for me was the preface where Twain explained what the book had started as and who the main characters had been before the story ran in a different direction and the way he came up with disposing of the then-useless characters was a moment for actual laughter. That alone is worth giving the book a chance, if for nothing else than to read the preface. ( )

This novel was amazing, it really holds up to Mark Twain’s writing standards that I have grown to love over the years. Mark Twain does an amazing job with the writing of this novel as he develops the characters and the reader gets to see the twists of the baby-switch. The reader is able to follow the footsteps of both “Tom” and “Chambers,” who are clueless that they should be living eachothers lives. Thanks to one Pudd’nhead Wilson the whole fiasco is straightened out in the end however.
The reason this novel is so entertaining is because of what the innocent slave woman Roxy does in the beginning, and the fact that the conflict is solved because of Pudd’nhead’s thought to be irrelevant fingerprinting. I personally enjoyed watching this whole plot unfold infront of me and the fact that had Roxy not done what she did to help her own child, maybe things could have turned out better. Roxy’s son, Chambers, or “Tom,” ended up being spoiled and vicious. Perhaps not that much better of an outcome over a slave. “Tom,” must ask for money to buy Roxy back from her owner down the river, otherwise Roxy will tell everyone who he really is. I admire Roxy for holding this over his head because it is the one really big thing she has on him. Chambers gets into the judge’s house who is asleep at his desk with money strewn about. Chambers accidentally drops his knife sheath and wakes the judge, whom Chambers then kills. Had Chambers not of killed the judge at this moment Tom would have likely never known who he really was.
Mark Twain is an amazing author, and gets really in depth with his books and writes extremely well in a way that is not too confusing. At face value this book seems as though it would be confusing but Mark Twain successfully pulls off the book. The setting Twain uses is fitting for time, early-mid 1800s, is a small little frontier town in Missouri named Dawson’s Landing. Dawson’s landing is just off the Mississippi River, which is the river specified when referencing “down the river.” The Mississippi was a great way to transport slaves quickly and cheaply to the South, and to much harder labor.
I enjoyed this book so much because of the amazing plot twists and turns that happened so often in the novel. Whether a white slave was giving her child a chance at a free life, or that same white slave is holding over her child’s head who he really is, this novel is full of suprises. Especially since Pudd’nhead’s baby fingerprints that the public frowned upon so badly ended up saving the day. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Mark Twain, or really anyone who wants to read an awesome book. Overall I would give this book 5 of 5 stars and may have to read it again sometime in the future.

This is a fun little book that I first read in tenth grade. In fact, I think it's the only Twain I've ever read, though I really ought to change that. I was recently perusing my shelves for a short book that was a change of pace from my other current reads, and when I spotted this one, I knew I'd found it.

This is such a neat little story as far as plot goes. He lays everything out for the reader from the beginning, all in plain sight, and then proceeds to tell a nicely interwoven complex tale, and you're not entirely certain where it's going until it actually gets there. My favorite part is the whole use of fingerprints in the story, a fairly novel thing in the time and culture this was written. Twain also manages to delve into the topics of race and circumstances of blood and upbringing, and what makes a man who he is.

A short and enjoyable tale I would recommend to anyone, and one I would reread (and have). ( )

I didn't really "get" this book when I was younger, but now I think it's brilliant, and a lot of fun to teach. ( )