The book was well packed arrived on time to do the report and was a good read.

Twain's classic socio-economic fairy tale may not be his strongest or best-written work, but it is certainly profound and clever. Edward, prince of England, and Tom, a poor street urchin, switch places on a lark and end up having adventures, learning quite a bit about how the other side lives, and learn a bit about themselves. A timeless classic often duplicated and imitated due to its fantastic message. Grade: A-

The Prince and the Pauper is Mark Twain's historical novel of mistaken identity. In it, Prince Edward and a filthy, destitute urchin who looks exactly like him inadvertently switch places. The majority of the book is spent following the boys, particularly Edward, as they attempt (or not) to regain their rightful places.

This book features numerous historical characters, and Twain researched them and the time period well. There is a great deal of social commentary here, as Twain has quite a lot to say about some of the more ruthless laws that England has had. He also delivers a rather ironic commentary on the social classes of the day.

The Prince and the Pauper is entertaining, although it suffers from slow pacing. There's entirely too much time spent with people carrying on about how each imposter has gone mad, and how he must be humored, and how this will put him to rights again. It grows tiresome, as does Edward's continual attempts to assert his kingly rights while dressed in rags. His learning curve is a straight line.

All in all, The Prince and the Pauper is an entertaining enough book, and certainly it inspired innumerable inferior derivatives like few works have, but it doesn't quite measure up to Twain's later work of historical fiction, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

This book is a sublime `drama' of errors. The prince and the pauper change clothes and are mistaken by the whole population for one another. The prince lives a life of a vagabond and the pauper a royal one. In other words, all men are equal; one has only to change the garments. And, `So evanescent and unstable are men's works in the world.'
This book gives a fair picture of England in the 16th century, worth a Defoe or a Swift: the immense chasm between the rich and the poor, a heavily biased and corrupt judicial system and extremely cruel punishment. `It was a crime to be hungry in England.'
People were hanged for trifling larcenies and slowly boiled for alleged poisoning. `Witches' were burnt at the stake: `My good old blameless mother strove to earn bread by nursing the sick; one of these died, the doctors knew not how, so my mother was burnt for a witch, whilst my babes looked on and wailed ... drink to the merciful English law that delivered her from the English hell!'
The rich chased their farmers away by foreclosures (changing farms in sheep ranges), making instantly beggars of them. They risked heavily to be sold as slaves.

This book is a bittersweet Breughelian comedy about human injustice, cruelty and ultimately generosity.
Not to be missed.