Humor · Fantasy
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
A practical American engineer wakes up in Camelot and decides to modernize the Middle Ages.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
Hartford to Camelot
Hank Morgan is a superintendent at an arms factory in Hartford, Connecticut, a man who can make anything: guns, boilers, telegraphs, machines. In a fight with one of his workmen he takes a crowbar to the head and wakes under an oak tree near Camelot, in the year 528. Captured by a knight and sentenced to be burned at the stake, he remembers that a total eclipse of the sun is due that very day. From there he sets out, as “the Boss”, to bring the nineteenth century to the sixth. Mark Twain’s novel appeared in 1889.
Why it works for learners
Twain’s comedy comes from clashes anyone can understand: a practical man against ceremony, superstition, armor and bad plumbing. The episodes are self-contained and often very funny, like the knights Hank sends out on quests wearing advertising boards for soap. The vocabulary mixes the medieval (knight, armor, quest, castle, magic) with the modern (factory, newspaper, telephone, electricity), which makes it easy to remember by contrast. Beneath the jokes, though, it’s an angry book about slavery, the church and inherited power, and it darkens as it goes.
Which level to start at
B2 is the best start: you’ll follow both the comedy and the satire. B1 works for the story, which stays clear. If you’ve read The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, you’ll recognize the kind of storytelling Twain is mocking. Hank narrates in a brisk American voice, and the narration keeps it distinct from the stately speech of the knights around him.
Read next
- The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Camelot played straight
- Don Quixote, the great comedy of chivalry gone wrong
- The Time Machine, time travel in the other direction