A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Preface

In the first chapter of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Twain addresses readers as himself, telling of a trip he made to England when he made the acquaintance of a stranger at Warwick Castle. This stranger tells him that he was in England at the time of King Arthur. That night, the narrator reads a story about Sir Launcelot fighting giants, and the stranger comes to his room.

The stranger, Hank Morgan (his name is never actually revealed until Chapter XXXIX), explains that he was a gunsmith in Hartford, Connecticut, when, during a fight, he was hit on the head with a crowbar. When he came to, he did not recognize his surroundings and was told that he was in Camelot. He gives the narrator a manuscript of his journal from that time, and the rest of the novel is told as if he (Hank) wrote it.

Chapter I – vii

Soon after arriving, Hank meets a young man he calls Clarence, who tells him that the year is 513. Hank is taken prisoner by Sir Kay the Seneschal and taken into the palace, where he observes the familiar characters of legend. However, Hank finds them to be exaggerators, liars, and naively superstitious. Sir Kay tells exaggerated tales about how he conquered giants; Sir Dinadan tells jokes that Hank knows from his own childhood. Merlin tells how King Arthur gained his enchanted sword, Excalibur. Hank explains that he himself is a magician and has been familiar with Merlin, in different guises, over the course of centuries. Because Hank knows that the date of a solar eclipse is eminent, he threatens to block out the sun if not released from custody. Just as Hank is being led to his execution, the eclipse occurs, and everyone marvels at Hank's powerful magic. Hank follows this trick by destroying Merlin's tower, which he manages by inventing gun powder, hiding it in the tower walls, and attaching a lighting rod as a detonator.

Chapter Viii – x

Hank is then accepted as the most powerful magician in the country. He is made an advisor to King Arthur and given a title: "The Boss." Over the next four years, Hank undertakes social reforms, such as starting a school system, reforming the mining system and the currency, and developing a telegraph and telephone system. Hank's employees in these adventures are kept separate from the rest of the population.

Chapter Xi – xxvi

A woman, Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise, comes to Camelot and tells the tale of forty-four maidens being held prisoner for twenty-six years by three one-eyed, four-armed brothers. Hank is skeptical, but King Arthur believes her tale and sends Hank out in armor with the girl to rescue her friends.

Traveling the countryside with Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise, whom Hank nicknames Sandy, Hank sees the political situation as it really is. He finds that free men are not free at all because they have to pay large portions of their crops to the king and the church. Hank stops at the castle of Morgan Le Fey, Arthur's sister, and sees how a really cruel despot treats her subjects. He tours Le Fey's dungeons and meets a man imprisoned on the testimony of a masked, anonymous stranger: the man accepts cruel punishment because his wife would lose all that she owns if he were to confess. Hank sends the man and his wife to the Man Factory, a brain trust of the smartest and bravest citizens. Hank finds dozens of prisoners in the castle's dungeons who were put there so long ago that no one knows what they were convicted of. Hank frees them.

When Hank and Sandy eventually reach the castle that Sandy has described, it turns out to be a common pigsty, and the maidens that she said were being held prisoner are the pigs. She tells Hank that it just seems that way to him because of a magic spell, and he admits that it might be his view and not hers that is wrong.

On the way home, they join a group of pilgrims going to the Valley of Holiness, where they find that the sacred spring has stopped flowing. Hank examines it and finds a way to fix the well that feeds the spring. This act increases Hank's reputation.

Chapter Xxvii – xxxix

After returning to Camelot and establishing more improvements in law and journalism, Hank decides to travel the country disguised as a peasant. King Arthur decides to join him. They run across all sorts of social injustices while traveling, such as the fate of a family unable to maintain their farm because the adult sons are in prison for a crime they did not commit.

Presenting themselves as a farmer and his bailiff, Hank and King Arthur lunch in one town with the local tradesmen and argue about politics. Offended, one of the men manages to have King Arthur and Hank arrested and put into slavery. In London, Hank eventually manages to escape and goes to a shop that has one of the telephones on the network he has devised. Hank calls Clarence to send help from Camelot. Just as Hank and King Arthur are on the gallows ready to be hanged, Sir Launcelot and five hundred knights, riding bicycles, arrive and save them.

Back in Camelot, Hank is forced to face up to a challenge to duel that was made years earlier by Sir Sagramor, who has been off seeking the Holy Grail. Hank, without wearing armor and without carrying a lance, faces Sir Sagramor. Hank wears Sir Sagramor down with deft horse riding and then pulls him off his mount with a lasso. Other knights rise to challenge Hank. He uses the lasso seven more times before Merlin steals it. Hank then starts shooting the other knights with his pistol before the knights give up.

Chapter Xl – afterword

Three years pass. Hank is married to Sandy, and they have a daughter. When the baby becomes sick, Sandy and the baby go to France for a warmer climate. Hank returns to England to find the country practically deserted. Clarence informs him that King Arthur found out about the romance between Guenever and Sir Launcelot and ordered her burned at the stake. Clarence also tells Hank that Launcelot, in trying to rescue Guenever, killed several knights, leading to a massive Civil War. When all of the knights were dead, including King Arthur, the Catholic Church invaded the country.

Hank and Clarence organize fifty-two young men at Merlin's Cave to defend the free political system that has grown over recent years; however, the people side with the church. Practically the entire country rises against Hank and his men. A clever system of explosives and electrical fences traps the invaders, killing around 25,000 soldiers. Once their bodies start decomposing, the air becomes thick with pestilence. Clarence writes the last chapter of the journal, explaining how Merlin came to them in the cave and put a spell on the injured Hank to sleep for 1,300 years.

In the final chapter of the book, Mark Twain describes finishing the manuscript and going to the room of the stranger who gave it to him. The man is in the room, muttering to Sandy (his long ago wife), and then he dies.

Media Adaptations

• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court was adapted as a light-hearted musical in 1949, starring Bing Crosby, Rhonda Fleming, Cedric Hardwicke, and William Bendix. The music is by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke. It was released by Universal on VHS in 1993.
• Iconic American humorist Will Rogers had the starring role in the 1931 adaptation of Twain's story, called simply A Connecticut Yankee. Directed by David Butler, it was released by Twentieth Century Fox and is available on VHS.
• In 2001, comedian Martin Lawrence starred in Black Knight, a movie that was an adaptation of Twain's basic premise. In this version, Lawrence plays a contemporary amusement park operator who is transported back to medieval times. It is available on DVD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Video.
• A two CD recording of an abridged version of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is available from Naxos, published in 2001. It is read by Kenneth Jay.
• Comedian Carl Reiner recorded an abridged version of the novel for Dove Audio's Ultimate Classics series in 1993. It is available on three CDs.
• Blackstone Audio has an 8-cassette version of the book that is unabridged. It is read by Chris Walker and was released in 1999.
• The entire text of this novel is available on the Internet at http://www.literature.org/authors/twain-mark/connecticut/index.html in a searchable format.
• Almost anything that a student would want to find out about Arthurian legend is cross-referenced at the University of Rochester's web page at The Camelot Project: Arthurian Texts, Images, Bibliographies and Basic Information. This web page can be found at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm