Unsigned review, Athenaeum
19 January 1895, no. 3508, 83-4
The best thing in Pudd'nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain (Chatto & Windus), is
the picture of the negro slave Roxana, the cause of all the trouble which
gives scope to Mr. Wilson's ingenious discovery about finger-marks. Her
gusts of passion or of despair, her vanity, her motherly love, and the
glimpses of nobler feelings that are occasionally seen in her elementary
code of morals, make her very human, and create a sympathy for her in
spite of her unscrupulous actions. But hers is the only character that is
really striking. Her son is a poor creature, as he is meant to be, but he
does not arrest the reader with the same unmistakable reality: his actions
are what might be expected, but his conversations, especially with Wilson
and the Twins, seem artificial and forced. Wilson, the nominal hero,
appears to most advantage in the extracts from his calendar which head the
chapters, but as a personage he is rather too shadowy for a hero. And what
has to be said about the book must be chiefly about the individuals in it,
for the story in itself is not much credit to Mark Twain's skill as a
novelist. The idea of the change of babies is happy, and the final trial
scene is a good piece of effect; but the story at times rambles on in an
almost incomprehensible way. Why drag in, for example, all the business
about the election, which is quite irrelevant? and the Twins altogether
seem to have very little raison d'etre in the book. Of course there are
some funny things in the story it would not be by Mark Twain if there were
not but the humour of the preface might very well be spared; it is in bad
taste. Still, if the preface be skipped the book well repays reading just
for the really excellent picture of Roxana.