‘The Prince and the Pauper’ was published in England, Canada, Germany, and America early in December, 1881.  There had been no stint of money, and it was an extremely handsome book.  The pen-and-ink drawings were really charming, and they were lavish as to number.  It was an attractive volume from every standpoint, and it was properly dedicated “To those good-mannered and agreeable children, Susy and Clara Clemens.”

The story itself was totally unlike anything that Mark Twain had done before.  Enough of its plan and purpose has been given in former chapters to make a synopsis of it unnecessary here.  The story of the wandering prince and the pauper king—­an impressive picture of ancient legal and regal cruelty—­is as fine and consistent a tale as exists in the realm of pure romance.  Unlike its great successor, the ’Yankee at King Arthur’s Court’, it never sacrifices the illusion to the burlesque, while through it all there runs a delicate vein of humor.  Only here and there is there the slightest disillusion, and this mainly in the use of some ultra-modern phrase or word.

Mark Twain never did any better writing than some of the splendid scenes in ‘The Prince and the Pauper’.  The picture of Old London Bridge; the scene in the vagabond’s retreat, with its presentation to the little king of the wrongs inflicted by the laws of his realm; the episode of the jail where his revelation reaches a climax—­these are but a few of the splendid pictures which the chapters portray, while the spectacle of England acquiring mercy at the hands of two children, a king and a beggar, is one which only genius could create.  One might quote here, but to do so without the context would be to sacrifice atmosphere, half the story’s charm.  How breathlessly interesting is the tale of it!  We may imagine that first little audience at Mark Twain’s fireside hanging expectant on every paragraph, hungry always for more.  Of all Mark Twain’s longer works of fiction it is perhaps the most coherent as to plot, the most carefully thought out, the most perfect as to workmanship.  This is not to say that it is his greatest story.  Probably time will not give it that rank, but it comes near to being a perfectly constructed story, and it has an imperishable charm.

It was well received, though not always understood by the public.  The reviewer was so accustomed to looking for the joke in Mark Twain’s work, that he found it hard to estimate this new product.  Some even went so far as to refer to it as one of Mark Twain’s big jokes, meaning probably that he had created a chapter in English history with no foundation beyond his fancy.  Of course these things pained the author of the book.  At one time, he had been inclined to publish it anonymously, to avert this sort of misunderstanding, and sometimes now he regretted not having done so.

Yet there were many gratifying notices.  The New York Herald reviewer gave the new book two columns of finely intelligent appreciation.  In part he said: