The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson is a novel by Mark Twain, first serialized in 1893–94 and published in book form in 1894. It exposes race made into legal status in a slaveholding Missouri town.

Fearing that her infant son may be sold away, the enslaved Roxy exchanges him with the white child in her care. The boys grow into the names and privileges assigned by that secret, making identity produced by power more decisive than ancestry or character.

David Wilson earns his mocking nickname soon after arriving in Dawson's Landing, but his unfashionable interest in fingerprints later intersects with visiting Italian twins and a murder. Twain builds a mystery organized by fingerprints around consequences already set in motion by slavery.

Maxims from Pudd'nhead Wilson's calendar frame a narrative of doubles, performance, inheritance, and mistaken certainty. Its satire shows social categories enforcing fate: law can uncover an individual identity while leaving the racial system that deformed every life intact.

"There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to."