A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (A Graphic Novel Audio): Illustrated Classics

Written by Mark Twain

Narrated by Saddleback Educational Publishing

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go back in time, knowing what you know now? That is the story of a Connecticut Yankee who is magically transported back to King Arthur's time. But with the knowledge of modern technology. Will modern technology win out over the magic of Merline, the court magician?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9781612474380

Mark Twain

Frederick Anderson, Lin Salamo, and Bernard L. Stein are members of the Mark Twain Project of The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (A Graphic Novel Audio)

[ysar_6 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I loved the idea of this tale. A man with full knowledge of modern marvels somehow travels back to a much less civilized time and wreaks havoc. But after the initial fascination wore off, it became a rather tedious read.The main character suddenly finds himself in medieval times, surrounded lunacy and superstition. A well-timed eclipse is the only thing that saves him from execution, and he then begins using his knowledge of modern conveniences to claim his position as a man of magic. Initially, it's fun and interesting, but it soon becomes one "magic" display after another, while the locals act like idiots, until the whole thing blows up and he finds himself back in the modern day. I suppose it would make for a good movie, but as much as I like Twain, I have to say I am more than finished with this book

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What happens when a man from 19th century Connecticut suddenly finds himself in the world of King Arthur? He tries to modernize the place, of course. It's a quite humorous look at a man who can outperform the magician Merlin by equipping them with useful gadgets like telephones. He even trains the armed forces with 19th century weaponry. I'm not a huge fan of time travel stories, but this one was just absurd enough to keep me laughing. Twain's imagination in this novel is certainly one of the things that probably endeared him so much as a 19th century humorist. I suspect that a 21st century Connecticut Yankee would be burned at the stake as a witch when he came up with the Internet and other inventions that have transpired in the 125 years or so since the writing of this work.

[jimmaclachlan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't know why this book doesn't rank higher among the classics & isn't discussed more. Twain manages to highlight more of our human & modern society's ills & graces than any other book I've read. This is not just a man out of his time, but a journey of discovering just how large, fast changes, seemingly made for the best, can actually be horrifying with unforeseen consequences. (Sound familiar? Haven't we all been talking about how technology & the Internet has changed our lives so much recently?)

Twain somehow manages to cover it all in this fairly short book; the justice system, technology, human rights, & war. Was he a time traveler himself? He first published this book in 1872, but the final battle is eerily reminiscent of World War I which took place over 3 decades later.

Twain's themes are practically timeless, as often hilarious as they are poignant. The section where Hank, the Connecticut Yankee, is traveling with Arthur incognito is one of my favorites. The Yankee might be out of place, but Arthur is even more so in his own time & kingdom simply due to his status.

The writing style takes a bit of getting used to, but is wonderful, giving even Shakespeare a run for his money. Take this gem:
I passed them at a rattling gait, and as I went by I flung out a hair-lifting soul-scorching thirteen-jointed insult which made the king's effort poor and cheap by comparison. I got it out of the nineteenth century where they know how.

The story isn't perfect. Characters were too often caricatures, common to Twain's writing, but he uses this to great effect when circumstance suddenly twists. There was quite a bit of convenience to the plot, but again this is used to make his points. Overall it is an amazing read & one that should be hauled out every decade or so & reviewed.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A time travel fantasy written before that genre was terribly popular. Ah, lack a me. I wish I hadn't reread this. The suck fairy has robbed my memory of the fun of this story. I listened to the audio version, with William Dufris as the narrator. Although I didn't enjoy a couple of his characterizations, he was a fine reader, so I don't believe the suck can be attributed to him. What ruined this for me, was the bombardment of ranting. I don't remember that from my first read (I was in my early twenties then). Possibly because I skimmed it? Also, I didn't like The Boss. He was the epitome of the "Ugly American Abroad." He was judgmental, believing that he was the only one with intelligence or ideas worth having, and his way was the only right way. Did Twain do this on purpose, to illustrate the ugly American? If so, he did a masterful job, but I won't ever need to read this again.For positive notes, oh, no, I can't think of any. Even the humor didn't amuse me this time. Ah well.

[cyderry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mark Twain was considered a humorist during his lifetime and this book definitely shows his talent in that area. As the reader progresses through the adventure of Hank also known as "The Boss" we see items from the "future" being incorporated into the 6th century environment - knight's armor used as advertising billboards, newspaper (when most residents couldn't read), schools and factories.Slavery was a blatant issue throughout with both the Boss and Arthur ending the Slave market at one time. But the amusing details that Twain adds - Child's Name being HelloCentral, cycling knights instead of riding horses, pipe smoking seeming to be a dragon - all has the reader laughing and smiling throughout. I'm usually not a big fan of Classics, but this one was fun!

[alyssa.wassink · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I kept waiting for some grand end to this book, something that would give the rest of it purpose. And the closest I got was the suggestion that perhaps the world would be better off it all the ruling monarchs were replaced with ruling cats. A large part of me wanted that to be the ultimate conclusion. It wasn't. Still, the book was entertaining (though I must confess I skipped over a hefty portion of the period writing--I just couldn't take it).Overall, it was a fun book. There was a mix of humor and a look at what makes people behave the way they do. The book was a little long, and I kept waiting for that "Aha!" moment, but it was worth the time and effort it took to read.

[mojacobs · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I picked up this book in a second hand shop, because I was curious what Twain would have made of this nice idea: a technically well educated 19th century man in the court of Arthur. I did not expect too much, and I was right to: the story is secondary to the political messages in this book, and the story is not very interesting. I read a lot of it diagonally - the book is very slow in places. A bit disappointing, and I wonder if this will stay a "classic" - I think it might quietly disappear in the mists of time.”

[kassilem · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought I would like this book. I like time travel and I like the legend of King Arthur. It didn't take very long however before I knew I wouldn't like it as much as I expected to. The big reason is that the narrator continually degrades the people of King Arthur's time as lacking intelligence. It's always brought up that he is the smarter one and everyone else is a bit slow. This bothered me. I don't believe in societies being more civilized or less primitive than other societies. As an anthropologist, it is a big deal for me that everyone realizes no societies is superior or inferior to any other society. Now I do realize that this book was written in the late 1800s, which was a time were unilineal evolution was very prevalent (Thinking that societies other than western society are inferior and that they are not yet civilized). And because of this I can see why this superiority is found throughout the book. It still bothers me. :) The book does bring up some very important issues about things like slavery, the effects of caste systems, and taxes. It turned out that was most of what the book was about; social commentary. I didn’t mind that all that much although it did seem to get slightly preachy. There are some fairy funny parts and overall it was an interesting story. But it didn’t really satisfy me. I do think it is a great classic book. There are tons of good discussions that could be pulled from it in classrooms or book discussions. I am glad I finally read it, even if I won’t ever read it again.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When a “modern” 19th-century New Englander gets hit on the head and finds himself in King Arthur's England, it's obvious that there will be a clash of cultures. Hank Morgan doesn't think much of the average medieval person (or even the above average ones). From his “advantage” as a beneficiary of industrial age inventions, he sees the people of Camelot as simple-minded and superstitious. He does find one person with promise, a young man he calls Clarence. With Clarence's help, Hank surreptitiously embarks on an improvement plan to introduce the wonders of 19th-century technology into Arthurian Britain.Even though 19-century technology is no longer what anyone would consider modern, it's fun to see the anachronistic blending of distinct historical eras, such as knights wearing sandwich board ads or competing against each other in baseball. Twain lived at the right time to tell this story. He couldn't have written the same book today. It's just believable that a 19th century man could train enough laborers to replicate 19th century technology as long as the raw materials were available. It would be much harder for a single 21st century man (or woman) to train medieval laborers to build a computer, a cell phone, a television, or an airplane, and connect them all with the Internet.I thought I had read this book years ago, but only the first few chapters seemed familiar to me. Maybe I started the book but didn't finish it. I listened to an unabridged audio version this time. It took a while for me to warm up to the narrator. Or maybe it took him a while to become fully invested in the story. I also discovered that some parts of the book don't work well in audio format. Twain uses archaic language and speech patterns when the medieval characters tell stories. These parts of the book are difficult to follow in audio format. I would encourage most readers to start with the book and save the audio version for a re-read.

[corinneblackmer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Connecticut Yankee uses the literary and historical past to satirize the idealization of the medieval period and the fictions of Sir Walter Scott, which Twain held responsible for the willingness of the South to enter the failed cause of the Civil War. Hank Morgan works in an arms factory in modern day Hartford, Connecticut, but a blow to the head sends him back into the world of Camelot and King Arthur. Rather than idyllic, the world into which Hank enters reeks of superstition, cruelty, poverty, misery, and moral chaos, including slavery. The drama unfolds as the skill of Hank in manipulating physical reality transforms him into a demi-god, which in turns sparks his desire to eliminate, through all means necessary, the superstitious world that confronts him. This takes the form of a total war that before its time anticipates the carnage of WWI and the outcome of the clash between psychological ignorance and belief and modern scientific and technological "wizardry." Although the tone is occasionally clumsy, and although the book cannot hold a candle to masterpieces by Twain such as Huckleberry Finn or The Mysterious Stranger, Connecticut Yankee contains one passage, about the nastiness of attempting to live inside armor that is so hilarious it brings tears to the eyes.

[wmnch2fam · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Twain's tale of time travel.

[john257hopper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Overall I found this disappointing. It had a few good bits in it, where the author/narrator rails against oppression and injustice and a few moving and horrifying scenes depicting said oppression and injustice. However, these were surrounded by oceans of silliness in which the author is preoccupied with reproducing the details, both good and bad, of 19th century American society into 6th century England (of course, it is not really 6th century England, as it is the Thomas Malory depiction of King Arthur in the style of high Medieval chivalry). Despite his self-proclaimed lofty ideals and opposition to the violence of the era, the narrator uses violence himself and casually causes the deaths of 25,000 knights in the final battle. This may be authorial comment on 19th century white American treatment of the native American and Black populations, but I rather doubt it - it all seems too trivial to be satirical.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not at all the Saturday afternoon feature starring Bing Crosby. I was amazed at the dissimilarity. Here, the Yankee so improves Camelot with the inventions of the nineteenth century that he works a revolution. Lancelot is not a lout! This fantasy is well done and very much more entertaining than a darkened cinema and unreal colors on the screen.

[feelinglistless · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

With just a vague memory of the film adaptation starring Bing Crosby, some notion of the influences it has had on Doctor Who, and the cover illustration as a guide, I approached A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court expecting a typically structured but entertaining story of a man out of time and although Twain/Clemens’s tale begins in that mode, it quickly tips over into a far darker meandering satire on Western imperialism and industrialisation. The protagonist Hank Martin is a loathsome figure and even though the story’s told from his POV, I slowly became more and more protective of the Arthurian characters who barely seem to deserve the treatment the Yankee gives them. But that’s Twain/Clemens’s point I think; how the modern versions of us, apparently so sophisticated, are desperate to sap the magic from the world, be it in nature or man itself. A difficult read but a transportative one. This is psychogeographical literature.

[infotechhs · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. It was short and funny.

[evertrap · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes rambling, but an excellent case against state controlled societies and the harm it does to the human spirit.

[jennannej_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A satirical look at the era of King Arthur's court from the viewpoint of a 19th century man. I found this book more practical and political that I had expected. Hank Morgan, the Connecticut Yankee, introduces modern conveniences and inventions into a superstitious and poor era.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An absolutely wonderful, humourous book. One of Twain's best.

[fdholt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mark Twain has used the subject of knighthood and King Arthur to write about problems of the nineteenth century. His main character, Hank Morgan, is hit on the head and wakes up in Arthur’s England. With New England ingenuity, he soon has modern conveniences like electricity, schools, telegraph, telephone, railroads, etc. Many of his adventures are hilarious, but several are graphic and heartrending. One of the best sections involves the quest to free friends of Lady Alisande la Carteloise who have been enchanted by ogres. This is the same Sandy who speaks in very long sentences, at least a page or two in length, and puts most everyone to sleep!When I read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court as a teenager, I was caught up in the Camelot mystique and did not choose to recognize the issues that Twain was trying to preach to his audience. Slavery was still raw in this country; there was a wide gulf between the haves and have-nots; education was not free to all. The established church also did not far well in this novel. (The Boss wanted to replace the Catholic Church with a free-form system of Protestant churches.) By far, the most interesting section was the lesson on economics where the wages paid to a worker and the price of goods could make the less-well paid worker much better off. But most disturbing to me was the wanton killing – life was cheap and not really valued. The nobility killed and cared not. Even Hank kills many knights and doesn’t seem to see the parallels. But just maybe, this is one of the things that Twain wants us to notice - this and the parallels to life in the author’s day.Reading this book may make you uncomfortable but it will make you think. It was well worth the re-reading these many years later.

[harmless_dilettante · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you've only seen the Danny Kay adaptation, then don't judge this book by its movie. The novel is darker and deeper, with an outcome as inevitable as it is unlikely. Twain's witty take on the now classic, even cliched, time traveller tale is American Science Fiction at its best.

[bragan_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mark Twain's classic tale of a 19th-century go-getter who gets hit on the head, wakes up in the kingdom of Camelot, and proceeds to gleefully set about introducing his own era's technology and ideas about civilization to the Dark Ages (soon to be briefly lit by electricity).This isn't the first time I'd read this novel, but my last encounter was nearly a quarter-century ago, and apparently I hadn't remembered it nearly as well as I'd thought. I'd recalled it, somewhat fondly, as a comic romp, a humorous satire of both Arthurian romance and the social attitudes of the Gilded Age, as well as the predecessor of a zillion less interesting science fiction stories in which improbably ingenious time travelers manage to rebuild their own technologically advanced civilizations centuries early, from scratch.Well, it is all of those things. But what I'd completely forgotten is that it's also a scathing diatribe against monarchy, slavery, state-established religion, and the oppression of the poor, complete with lots of disturbing and depressing scenes calculated to bring the importance of these subjects home. Twain being Twain, it's very well done, but it does perhaps get to be a bit much. It certainly wasn't an ideal thing to read at a time when I was busy and easily distracted.Rating: Despite it not being quite the right book at the right time for me, I figure it still probably deserves 4/5. Because, come on, Twain.

[farnsworthk_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While I admit there were several funny scenes in this book, overall it is bitter and boring. Twain was angry at the Catholic Church at this time and it shows. The premise is awesome, but it needed to be much shorter.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Twain has a wicked sense of humor, but his novels on social commentary tend to be even more powerful than his playful ones. My assumption was that this book would fall into the comedy category. Based on film versions and the general premise, it sounded like an entertaining, light novel. While there were some very funny parts, this is a much darker book than I was expecting. It’s both an adventure and a cautionary tale. There are also so many wonderful lines, zingers that I know I can always expect from Twain.The plot tells the story of a man who is hit in the head and wakes up 1300 years earlier in 528 AD. It’s the Dark Ages and King Arthur is on the throne. He has no way of getting home, so instead he tries to build a life in England and becomes one of King Arthur’s knights. The dark tone of the book seeps into almost every scene. Even when our narrator is using gunpowder to pretend to have magic, there’s always a chance that he will be killed for sorcery. In one section our time traveling hero is touring the countryside with King Arthur, who is disguised as a peasant. They come upon a home where a family of four is dying of a disease plaguing the area. They care for them, but it’s much too late to save them from their grim fate. In their dying moments they learn that this family’s misfortune, perpetuated by the local manor lord, left them destitute and desperate. The King is being forced to see the problems in his kingdom firsthand and it’s not a pleasurable experience. BOTTOM LINE: There are jousts and hangings, betrayals and jealousy; all the great elements of an adventure novel. I was surprised by how much depth I found and the bittersweet ending will stick with me. “The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but when you come to realize your fact, it takes on color. It is all the difference between hearing of a man being stabbed to the heart, and seeing it done.”“Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting to observe and examine.”“Intellectual "work" is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him—why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same.”

[jrgoetziii · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm going to disagree with the other reviewers here and say that I found A Connecticut Yankee largely disappointing. It's been said that it marks the transition from Twain as an idealist to Twain as disillusioned. I found him already on the latter side of that hill, and the text often came across as bitter and annoyed and not very funny, which isn't good since it's supposed to be a satire. Twain apparently blamed Sir Walter Scott for the Civil War because the South fell in love with chivalry as represented in his works, and so he was, at least in part, criticizing that. But that in itself tells me how mistaken he was, because I can't see Sir Walter Scott, over in Scotland, having much to do with the Civil War in the United States.Now, as to Huck Finn...I found it a hell of a lot better work.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It was good to get my teeth into this, having meant to read it for a long time. I enjoyed the humour, and the political commentary, despite not agreeing with it and preferring (with a somewhat guilty pleasure) the shining chivalric version of Camelot to the dirt, ignorance and stupidity of this world. Parts of it felt very ranty and not like a story at all -- like the story was a vehicle for the political rants. Which is the way some authors work, and I suspect I'll find it in at least some of Twain's other work, when I revisit -- as a child, I didn't see it that way, but children tend not to.

There's lots of amusing ideas, and I kinda wish this was on my Arthurian Lit course to discuss -- I don't think it is, but you never know, I still might be able to write an essay on it...

It's definitely not so much about Arthur/Camelot as it is about Twain's own day, though. Don't be deceived.

[buffalogr · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A time travel book, the first? Clemens' view of the 6th century from the 19th is amazing. And, I was in awe that the words he used in the 19th century are good in the 21st...slang for example. This is really a story of about the biggest problems Mark Twain observed in his time period, including slavery, abuses of political power, unchecked factory growth, child labor, and frightening new war technology. And,the final battle scene aptly predicts the great war (WWI). All of it applied with wit!

[andyray_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Twain's version of Gulliver's Travels, with wonderful satire on the nature of the modern world thrown in.

[danielalgara · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Clever as hell. Twain always makes you think. The book is immersive, having the proper language and turns of phrases to pull one into the world. Really it would take someone of Twain's intelligence to pull off such an effort. Maybe not a big deal in his day, but in today's world, this book would have been impossible: today every one runs at an even keel that someone about 50 years ago set at "dumb". (As proof of this I ask you to consider whether Stieg Larsson or Stephanie Meyer could have written a work comparable to any of Twain's works)

Of course I detest Twain's philosophy, but this book is a flushing of ideas and absurdities, and in someway he makes light of his own world view making them look quite ridiculous when you read it with the eye of one who has observed the last 100 years of world history.

A very necessary read as literary art and even as entertainment.

Well done, man from Hannibal. I hope your grave is cozy.

[mehjg-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I enjoy Mark Twain's writing, but this book was so laden with anti-Catholic bias and historically inaccurate attacks on the Church and on the society of the Middle Ages that I found it totally unpalatable. I was very disappointed - even disgusted - by this book. I didn't finish reading it.

[fredb_48 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mark Twain's classic tale of culture clash. The narrator was great.