A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

First published: 1889

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social satire

Time of plot: Late nineteenth and early sixth centuries

Locale: England

Principal Characters

• Hank Morgan, the Connecticut Yankee, known as the Boss
• Clarence, his right-hand man, originally a young court page
• King Arthur, the legendary king of Britain
• Sandy (Alisande), a young maiden, later Hank’s wife
• Sir Sagramour le Desirous, a short-tempered knight
• Merlin, the court magician

The Story

Struck on the head during a quarrel in a New England arms factory, a skilled Yankee mechanic (later identified as Hank Morgan) awakens to find himself being prodded by the lance of an armored knight on horseback. The knight is Sir Kay Seneschal of King Arthur’s Round Table and the time is June, 528 CE, in England. So a foppish young page named Clarence informs the incredulous Hank as the knight takes him to white-towered Camelot. Remembering that there was a total eclipse of the sun on June 21, 528, Hank decides that should the eclipse take place, he will know that he is indeed a lost traveler in time turned backward to the days of chivalry.

At Camelot, Hank listens to King Arthur’s knights as they brag of their mighty exploits. The magician, Merlin, repeats his story of Arthur’s coming. Finally, Sir Kay tells of his encounter with Hank, and Merlin advises that the prisoner be thrown into a dungeon to await burning at the stake on June 21.

In prison, Hank thinks about the coming eclipse. Merlin, he tells Clarence, is a humbug, and he sends the boy to the court with a message that on the day of his death, the sun will darken and the kingdom will be destroyed. Just as Hank is about to be burned, the sky begins to dim. Awed, the king orders the prisoner released. The people shout that Hank is a greater magician than Merlin, and the king makes him his prime minister. Soon, however, the populace demands another display of his powers. With the help of Clarence, Hank mines Merlin’s tower with some crude explosives he makes and then tells everyone he will cause the tower to crumble and fall. When the explosion occurs, Hank is assured of his place as the new court magician. Merlin is thrown into prison temporarily.

The lack of mechanical devices in King Arthur’s castle bothers the ingenious New Englander, and the illiteracy of the people hurts his American pride in education. He decides to raise the commoners above mere slaves to the nobility. After several years pass, he has a title of his own, for the people call him “The Boss.” As the Boss, he intends to modernize the kingdom. His first act is to set up schools in small communities throughout the country. He has to work in secret, because he fears the interference of the Church. He trains workmen in mechanical arts. Believing that a nation needs a free press, he instructs Clarence in journalism. He has telephone wires stretched between hamlets, haphazardly, as it turns out, because there are no maps by which to be guided.

After Sir Sagramour challenges Hank to a duel, the king decides that Hank should go on some knightly quest to prepare himself for the encounter. His mission is to help a young woman named Alisande, whose precise story he is unable to get straight. With many misgivings, he puts on a burdensome suit of armor and on his heavy charger starts off with Alisande, whom he calls Sandy. Sandy tells endless tall tales as they travel through the land. Along the way, Hank marvels at the pitiable state of the people under the feudal system. Whenever he finds a man of unusual spirit, he sends him back to Clarence in Camelot, to be taught reading, writing, and a useful trade. He visits the dungeons of a castle at which he stays and releases prisoners unjustly held by the king’s cruel sister, Morgan le Fay.

In the Valley of Holiness, he finds another opportunity to prove his magic skill. There a sacred well has gone dry because, according to legend, a sin was committed. When he arrives, Merlin, now released from prison, is attempting magic to make the spring flow. Hank repairs a leak in the masonry at the bottom of the well; then, with much pomp, he restarts the water flow. As the well fills, Merlin goes home in shame.

By chance, Hank finds one of his telephone installations in a cave nearby. He uses the phone to talk to Clarence, who tells him that King Arthur is on his way to the Valley of Holiness to see the flowing spring. He returns to the spring to find a fake magician assuring the gaping pilgrims that he can tell what anyone is doing at that moment. Hank asks him about King Arthur. The magician says that he is asleep in his bed at Camelot. Hank grandly predicts that the king is on his way to the Valley of Holiness. When the king arrives, the people are again awed by Hank’s magic.

Anxious to learn about the condition of the people, Hank proposes to disguise himself as a commoner and travel through the country. The king insists on joining him. Hank knows that Arthur is not to blame for his own social doctrines; he is a victim of his place in society. On their journey, the king proves to be courageous and kind. Misfortune overtakes them, however, when they are seized by an earl and sold as slaves because they are unable to prove themselves free men. As slaves they are taken to London, where Hank picks the lock that holds him, kills the slave driver, and escapes. After his escape, the rest of the slaves are ordered to be hanged, but Hank locates a telegraph office and sends a message to Clarence in Camelot, ordering him to send help. The next day, Sir Launcelot and five hundred knights mounted on bicycles arrive in time to save Hank and the king.

Hank returns to Camelot in glory, but he still has to fight a duel with Sir Sagramour—a fight that in reality will be a battle between him and Merlin. Merlin professes to cover Sir Sagramour with an invisible shield, but the credulous knight is invisible to no one but himself. Wearing no armor and riding a small pony, Hank meets the heavily armored Sir Sagramour on the tournament field, where he dodges the charging knight until the latter grows tired. Hank then lassoes Sagramour and pulls him from his horse. After Hank bests other knights in this manner, Sagramour returns to the field; this time, Merlin steals Hank’s lasso. Seeing no alternative, Hank shoots Sir Sagramour with a revolver, after which he challenges all the knights of the land. He has only eleven rounds left in two revolvers, but after he kills nine charging knights, the line wavers and gives up.

Three years pass. By this time, Hank has married Sandy, and they have a little girl. He and Clarence plan to declare a republic after the death of Arthur, for the sixth century kingdom is now a nineteenth century land with schools, trains, factories, newspapers, telephones, and telegraph. Although the code of chivalry is abolished, the knights insist on wearing their armor. When little Hello-Central, Hank’s daughter, becomes ill, he and Sandy take the child to France to recuperate. During a return visit to England, Hank finds Camelot in shambles. Clarence, his only follower who remains loyal, explains what has happened. King Arthur and Sir Launcelot fought over Queen Guenevere. Now the king is dead, and the Church destroys Hank’s new civilization by Interdict.

Hank and Clarence fortify a cave, surrounding it with electrically charged barriers. In a battle with the massed chivalry of England, Hank is stabbed. When an old woman comes to the fortress from the enemy lines and offers to nurse him, no one recognizes her as Merlin in disguise. The magician casts a spell on Hank and declares that he will sleep for thirteen hundred years. Hank awakens to find himself once more in the nineteenth century.

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