What 1889 Mark Twain novel sends a character back to King Arthur's time?

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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is the 1889 Mark Twain novel that sends Hank Morgan back to King Arthur’s time.

Hank Morgan is a nineteenth-century Connecticut engineer who suffers a severe blow to the head and awakens in medieval England. He finds himself at King Arthur’s court, where his modern knowledge makes him appear to possess magical powers. He uses practical inventions and scientific understanding to challenge Merlin and reshape life in the kingdom.

The novel is more than a time-travel adventure. Twain uses Hank’s attempts to introduce schools, printing, telephones, factories, bicycles, and modern weapons to satirize feudalism, hereditary privilege, monarchy, organized religion, and the social assumptions of the nineteenth century.

Twain conceived the idea in 1884 and worked on the manuscript between 1885 and 1889. The book was first published in England under the title A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur before appearing in the better-known American form, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

The other choices are also Twain works, but none centers on a modern character transported into Arthurian England.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026

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