The Prince and the Pauper (1881)

Wikipedia has this short Mark Twain novel down as both "children's literature" and "realistic fiction." Well, first, it has some elements of social realism but it is absolutely not realistic. It uses a plot line Twain would go to again and again, ostensibly by way of mocking romantic literature. The basic version is that a low-born person and high-born person exchange positions. It's more typical in these stories that the switch takes place at birth (not least because it's more believable), but Twain's amazingly preposterous premise in this one has the boys meet when they are 14-ish. They meet by happenstance, note they are remarkably identical in appearance, and decide to give the ruse a go. It works! (yeah, right) It does have some of the self-conscious simplicity of a fairy tale, which of course requires accepting the premise as is, which somehow remains a tall order. I guess it's a little like granting superpowers of superheroes. So, right, children's literature. After that comes the social realism, as the King of England (no less) sees for himself what life is like for commoners. Once again Twain seems to implicitly accept the idea that the best of the high-born are the best of us all, while not ruling out some of them are rats and also there are good people among the low-born too. The Prince and the Pauper seemed predictable and even tiresome to me, with lots of unlikely and virtually meaningless action as Twain moves pieces about the board. The story is trying to please many and all, with cheers for the aristocracy and cheers for democracy too. If the high-born can have low characters they are rarely as low as the lowest of the low-born, which I think is sort of the giveaway with Twain. He seems to buy the existing European class structure to a certain extent. So it goes, as one of his inheritors would put it later. But I note that The Prince and the Pauper has been and remains fairly popular, with plays, movies, and TV productions coming along at a regular clip for better than a century. You can't knock that?

In case the library is closed due to pandemic. (Library of America)