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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
1889 frontispiece by Daniel Carter Beard, restored
Author
Mark Twain
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre
humor, satire, alternate history, science fiction (time travel), fantasy
Published
1889 (Charles L. Webster and Co.)[1]
Text
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court at Wikisource
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Some early editions are titled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.
In the book, a Yankee engineer from Connecticut named Hank Morgan receives a severe blow to the head and is somehow transported in time and space to England during the reign of King Arthur. After some initial confusion and his capture by one of Arthur's knights, Hank realizes that he is actually in the past, and he uses his knowledge to make people believe that he is a powerful magician. He attempts to modernize the past in order to make peoples lives better, but in the end he is unable to prevent the death of Arthur and an interdict against him by the Catholic Church of the time, which grows fearful of his power.
Twain wrote the book as a burlesque of Romantic notions of chivalry after being inspired by a dream in which he was a knight himself, severely inconvenienced by the weight and cumbersome nature of his armor. It is a satire of feudalism and monarchy that also celebrates homespun ingenuity and democratic values.
Contents
[hide]
1 Plot
1.1 Introduction to the "stranger"
1.2 The Takeover
1.3 The Interdict
2 Publication history and response
3 Analysis
4 As science fiction
5 Adaptations and references
6 See also
7 References
8 Notes
9 External links
Plot[edit]
The novel is a comedy that sees sixth-century England and its medieval culture through Hank Morgan's view; he is a nineteenth-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut, who, after a blow to the head, awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England where he meets King Arthur himself. Hank, who had an image of that time that had been colored over the years by romantic myths, takes on the task of analyzing the problems and sharing his knowledge from 1300 years in the future to try to modernize, Americanize, and improve the lives of the people.
Many passages are quoted directly from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a late medieval collection of Arthurian legends that constitutes one of the main sources on the myth of King Arthur and Camelot. The frame narrator is a nineteenth-century man (ostensibly Mark Twain himself) who meets Hank Morgan in modern times and begins reading Hank Morgan's book in the museum in which they both meet; later, characters in the story retell parts of it in Malory's original language. A chapter on medieval hermits also draws from the work of William Edward Hartpole Lecky.
Introduction to the "stranger"[edit]
"'Bridgeport?' said I, pointing. 'Camelot', said he."
The story begins as a first-person narrative in Warwick Castle, where a man details his recollection of a tale told to him by an "interested stranger" who is personified as a knight through his simple language and familiarity with ancient armor.[2]
After a brief tale of Sir Lancelot of Camelot and his role in slaying two giants from the third-person narrative—taken directly from Le Morte d'Arthur—the man named Hank Morgan enters and, after being given whiskey by the narrator, he is persuaded to reveal more of his story. Described through first-person narrative as a man familiar with the firearms and machinery trade, Hank is a man who had reached the level of superintendent due to his proficiency in firearms manufacturing, with two thousand subordinates. He describes the beginning of his tale by illustrating details of a disagreement with his subordinates, during which he sustained a head injury from a "crusher" to the head caused by a man named "Hercules" using a crowbar.[3] After passing out from the blow, Hank describes waking up underneath an oak tree in a rural area of Camelot, where he soon encounters the knight Sir Kay, riding by. Kay challenges him to a joust, which is quickly lost by the unweaponed, unarmored Hank as he scuttles up a tree. Kay captures Hank and leads him towards Camelot castle.[4] Upon recognizing that he has time-traveled to the sixth century, Hank realizes that he is the de facto smartest person on Earth, and with his knowledge he should soon be running things.
Hank is ridiculed at King Arthur's court for his strange appearance and dress and is sentenced by King Arthur's court (particularly the magician Merlin) to burn at the stake on 21 June. By a stroke of luck, the date of the burning coincides with a historical solar eclipse in the year 528, of which Hank had learned in his earlier life. While in prison, he sends the boy he christens Clarence (whose real name is Amyas le Poulet) to inform the King that he will blot out the sun if he is executed. Hank believes the current date to be 20 June; however, it is actually the 21st when he makes his threat, the day that the eclipse will occur at 12:03 p.m. When the King decides to burn him, the eclipse catches Hank by surprise. But he quickly uses it to his advantage and convinces the people that he caused the eclipse. He makes a bargain with the King, is released, and becomes the second most powerful person in the kingdom. (Twain may have drawn inspiration for this part of the story from a historical incident in which Christopher Columbus exploited foreknowledge of a lunar eclipse.)
Hank is given the position of principal minister to the King and is treated by all with the utmost fear and awe. His celebrity brings him to be known by a new title, elected by the people — "The Boss". However, he proclaims that his only income will be taken as a percentage of any increase in the kingdom's gross national product that he succeeds in creating for the state as Arthur's chief minister, which King Arthur sees as fair. Although the people fear him and he has his new title, Hank is still seen as somewhat of an equal. The people might grovel to him if he were a knight or some form of nobility, but without that, Hank faces problems from time to time, as he refuses to seek to join such ranks.
The Takeover[edit]
After being made "the Boss", Hank learns about medieval practices and superstitions. Having superior knowledge, he is able to outdo the alleged sorcerers and miracle-working church officials. At one point, soon after the eclipse, people began gathering, hoping to see Hank perform another miracle. Merlin, jealous of Hank having replaced him both as the king's principal adviser and as the most powerful sorcerer of the realm, begins spreading rumors that Hank is a fake and cannot supply another miracle. Hank secretly manufactures gunpowder and a lightning rod, plants explosive charges in Merlin's tower, then places the lightning rod at the top and runs a wire to the explosive charges. He then announces (during a period when storms are frequent) that he will soon call down fire from heaven and destroy Merlin's tower, then challenges Merlin to use his sorcery to prevent it. Of course, Merlin's "incantations" fail utterly to prevent lightning striking the rod, triggering the explosive charges and leveling the tower, further diminishing Merlin's reputation.
Hank Morgan, in his position as King's Minister, uses his authority and his modern knowledge to industrialize the country behind the back of the rest of the ruling class. His assistant is Clarence, a young boy he meets at court, whom he educates and gradually lets in on most of his secrets, and eventually comes to rely on heavily. Hank sets up secret schools, which teach modern ideas and modern English, thereby removing the new generation from medieval concepts, and secretly constructs hidden factories, which produce modern tools and weapons. He carefully selects the individuals he allows to enter his factories and schools, seeking to select only the most promising and least indoctrinated in medieval ideas, favoring selection of the young and malleable whenever possible.
As Hank gradually adjusts to his new situation, he begins to attend medieval tournaments. A misunderstanding causes Sir Sagramore to challenge Hank to a duel to the death; the combat will take place when Sagramore returns from his quest for the Holy Grail. Hank accepts, and spends the next few years building up 19th-century infrastructure behind the nobility's back. At this point, he undertakes an adventure with a wandering girl named the Demoiselle Alisande a la Carteloise—nicknamed "Sandy" by Hank in short order—to save her royal "mistresses" being held captive by ogres. On the way, Hank struggles with the inconveniences of plate armor (actually an anachronism, which would not be developed until the High Middle Ages or see widespread use until the Late Middle Ages), and also encounters Morgan le Fay. The "princesses", "ogres", and "castles" are all revealed to be actually pigs owned by peasant swineherds, although to Sandy they still appear as royalty. Hank buys the pigs from the peasants and the two leave.
On the way back to Camelot, they find a travelling group of pilgrims headed for the Valley of Holiness. Another group of pilgrims, however, comes from that direction bearing the news that the valley's famous fountain has run dry. According to legend, long ago the fountain had gone dry before as soon as the monks of the valley's monastery built a bath with it; the bath was destroyed and the water instantly returned, but this time it has stopped with no clear cause. Hank is begged to restore the fountain, although Merlin is already trying. When Merlin fails, he claims that the fountain has been corrupted by a demon, and that it will never flow again. Hank, in order to look good, agrees that a demon has corrupted the fountain but also claims to be able to banish it; in reality, the "fountain" is simply leaking. He procures assistants from Camelot trained by himself, who bring along a pump and fireworks for special effects. They repair the fountain and Hank begins the "banishment" of the demon. At the end of several long German language phrases, he says "BGWJJILLIGKKK", which is simply a load of gibberish, but Merlin agrees with Hank that this is the name of the demon. The fountain restored, Hank goes on to debunk another magician who claims to be able to tell what any person in the world is doing, including King Arthur. However, Hank knows that the King is riding out to see the restored fountain, and not "resting from the chase" as the "false prophet" had foretold to the people. Hank correctly states that the King will arrive in the valley.
Hank has an idea to travel amongst the poor disguised as a peasant to find out how they truly live. King Arthur joins him, but has extreme difficulty in acting like a peasant convincingly. Although Arthur is somewhat disillusioned about the national standard of life after hearing the story of a mother infected with smallpox, he still ends up getting Hank and himself hunted down by the members of a village after making several extremely erroneous remarks about agriculture. Although they are saved by a nobleman's entourage, the same nobleman later arrests them and sells them into slavery.
Hank steals a piece of metal in London and uses it to create a makeshift lockpick. His plan is to free himself, the king, beat up their slave driver, and return to Camelot. However, before he can free the king, a man enters their quarters in the dark. Mistaking him for the slave driver, Hank rushes after him alone and starts a fight with him. They are both arrested. Although Hank lies his way out, in his absence the real slave driver has discovered Hank's escape. Since Hank was the most valuable slave — he was due to be sold the next day — the man becomes enraged and begins beating his other slaves, who fight back and kill him. All the slaves, including the king, will be hanged as soon as the missing one — Hank — is found. Hank is captured, but he and Arthur are rescued by a party of knights led by Lancelot, riding bicycles. Following this, the king becomes extremely bitter against slavery and vows to abolish it when they get free, much to Hank's delight.
Sagramore returns from his quest, and fights Hank. Hank defeats him and seven others, including Galahad and Lancelot, using a lasso. When Merlin steals Hank's lasso, Sagramore returns to challenge him again. This time, Hank kills him with a revolver. He proceeds to challenge the knights of England to attack him en masse, which they do. After he kills nine more knights with his revolvers, the rest break and flee. The next day, Hank reveals his 19th century infrastructure to the country. With this fact he was called a wizard as he told Clarence to do so as well.
The Interdict[edit]
Three years later, Hank has married Sandy and they have a baby. While asleep and dreaming, Hank says, "Hello-Central" — a reference to calling a 19th-century telephone operator — and Sandy believes that the mystic phrase to be the name of a former girlfriend or lover of his, and thus to please him; names their child accordingly. However, the baby falls critically ill and Hank's doctors advise him to take his family overseas while the baby recovers. In reality, it is a ploy by the Catholic Church to get Hank out of the country, leaving the country without effective leadership. During the weeks that Hank is absent, Arthur discovers Guinevere's infidelity with Lancelot. This causes a war between Lancelot and Arthur, who is eventually killed by Sir Mordred.
The church then publishes "The Interdict" which causes all people to break away from Hank and revolt. Hank meets with his good friend Clarence who informs him of the war thus far. As time goes on, Clarence gathers 52 young cadets, from ages 14 to 17, who are to fight against all of England. Hank's band fortifies itself in Merlin's Cave with a minefield, electric wire and Gatling guns. The Catholic Church sends an army of 30,000 knights to attack them, but the knights are slaughtered by the cadets wielding Hank's modern weaponry.
However, Hank's men are now trapped in the cave by a wall of dead bodies. Hank attempts to go offer aid to any wounded, but is stabbed by the first wounded man he tries to help, Sir Meliagraunce. He is not seriously injured, but is bedridden. Disease begins to set in amongst them. One night, Clarence finds Merlin weaving a spell over Hank, proclaiming that he shall sleep for 1,300 years. Merlin begins laughing deliriously, but ends up electrocuting himself on one of the electric wires. Clarence and the others all apparently die from disease in the cave.
More than a millennium later, the narrator finishes the manuscript and finds Hank on his deathbed having a dream about Sandy. He attempts to make one last "effect", but dies before he can finish it.
Publication history and response[edit]
First English edition, 1889
Twain first conceived of the idea behind A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court in December 1884 and worked on it between 1885 and 1889.[5] The principal part of the writing was done at Twain's summer home at Elmira, New York and was completed at Hartford, Connecticut.[6] It was first published in England by Chatto & Windus under the title A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur in December 1889.[7] Writer and critic William Dean Howells called it Twain's best work and "an object-lesson in democracy".[8] The work was met with some indignation in Great Britain as it was perceived as "a direct attack on [its] the hereditary and aristocratic institutions".[6]
Analysis[edit]
The book pokes fun at contemporary society, but the main thrust is a satire of romanticized ideas of chivalry, and of the idealization of the Middle Ages common in the novels of Sir Walter Scott and other 19th-century literature. Twain had a particular dislike for Scott, blaming his kind of romanticizing of battle for the southern states' deciding to fight the American Civil War. He writes in Life on the Mississippi:
It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Major or a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it was he, also, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations. For it was he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverence for rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. [...] Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war.
—  Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi.[9]
For example, the book portrays the medieval people as being very gullible, as when Merlin makes a "veil of invisibility" which, according to him, will make the wearer imperceptible to his enemies, though friends can still see him. The knight Sir Sagramor wears it to fight Hank, who pretends that he cannot see Sagramor for effect to the audience.
Hank Morgan's opinions are also strongly denunciatory towards the Catholic Church of the medieval period; the Church is seen by the Yankee as an oppressive institution that stifles science and teaches peasants meekness only as a means of preventing the overthrow of Church rule and taxation. The book also contains many depictions and condemnations of the dangers of superstition and the horrors of medieval slavery.
It is possible to see the book as an important transitional work for Twain, in that earlier, sunnier passages recall the frontier humor of his tall tales such as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, while the corrosive view of human behavior in the apocalyptic latter chapters is more akin to darker, later Twain works such as The Mysterious Stranger and Letters from the Earth.
George Hardy notes, "The final scenes of 'Connecticut Yankee' depict a mass horse attempting to storm a position defended by wire and machine guns—and getting massacred, none reaching their objective. Deduct the fantasy anachronism of the assailants being Medieval knights, and you get a chillingly accurate prediction of a typical First World War battle.... The modern soldiers of 1914 with their bayonets had no more chance to win such a fight than Twain's knights".[10]
One frequently overlooked aspect of the book is the emotional intensity felt by Hank towards his family: wife Sandy and baby Hello-Central. Twain's own son, Langdon, died of diphtheria at the age of 19 months, which was likely reflected in Hello-Central's membranous croup. Twain also outlived two of his three daughters, but they both died after the completion of "Yankee." The last chapters of the book are full of Hank's pronouncements of love, culminating in his final delirium, where "an abyss of thirteen centuries yawning between me and you!" is worse than death.
As science fiction[edit]
While Connecticut Yankee is sometimes credited as the foundational work in the time travel subgenre of science fiction, Twain's novel had several important immediate predecessors. Among them are H.G. Wells's story "The Chronic Argonauts" (1888), which was a precursor to The Time Machine (1895). Also published the year before Connecticut Yankee was Edward Bellamy's wildly popular Looking Backward (1888), in which the protagonist is put into a hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up in the year 2000. Yet another American novel that could have served as a more direct inspiration to Twain was The Fortunate Island (1882) by Charles Heber Clark. In this novel, a technically proficient American is shipwrecked on an island that broke off from Britain during Arthurian times, and never developed any further.[11]
Adaptations and references[edit]
Since the beginning of the 20th century, this famous story has been adapted many times for the stage, feature-length motion pictures, and animated cartoons. The earliest film version was Fox's 1921 silent version. In 1927, the novel was adapted into the musical A Connecticut Yankee by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. A 1931 film, also called A Connecticut Yankee, starred Will Rogers. The story was adapted as an hour-long radio play on the October 5, 1947, broadcast of the Ford Theatre, starring Karl Swenson. A 1949 musical film featured Bing Crosby and Rhonda Fleming, with music by Jimmy Van Heusen and Victor Young. In 1960, Tennessee Ernie Ford starred in a television adaptation. In 1970, the book was adapted into a 74-minute animated TV special directed by Zoran Janjic with Orson Bean as the voice of the title character. In 1978 an episode of Once Upon a Classic, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", was an adaptation,[12] as was the Disney movie Unidentified Flying Oddball, also known as A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court. The TV series The Transformers had a second-season episode, "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court", that had a group of Autobots and Decepticons sent back to medieval times.[13] In 1988, the Soviet variation called New Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's Court appeared. More recently it was adapted into a 1989 TV movie by Paul Zindel which starred Keshia Knight Pulliam.[14]
It has also inspired many variations and parodies, such as the 1979 Bugs Bunny special A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur's Court. A Knight for a Day is a 1946 Disney short film starring Goofy loosely is loosely inspired by the novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In 1995, Walt Disney Studios adapted the book into the feature film A Kid in King Arthur's Court. Army of Darkness drew many inspirations from the novel. A 1992 cartoon series, King Arthur & the Knights of Justice, could also be seen as deriving inspiration from the novel. In 1998 Disney made another adaption with Whoopi Goldberg in A Knight in Camelot. The 2001 film Black Knight similarly transports a modern-day American to Medieval England while adding racial element to the time-traveler plotline.
In the Carl Sagan novel Contact, the protagonist, Eleanor Arroway, is reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, specifically the scene where Hank first approaches Camelot, when she finds out about her father's death. The quotation "'Bridgeport?' Said I. 'Camelot,' Said he" is also used later in the book, and the story is used as a metaphor for contact between civilizations at very different levels of technological and ethical advancement.[15]
"Yankee" has also greatly influenced the premier Soviet sci-fi writers, Strugatsky Brothers, and their two seminal books. In humorous Monday Begins on Saturday Merlin's character is taken entirely from the Mark Twain's book, and he often references it. Hard to Be a God is essentially a remake of "Yankee," concentrating on the moral and ethical questions of "civilizing the uncivilized." Its ending is almost identical to "Yankee": both main protagonists crumble under the weight of dead bodies of those they tried to civilize.
Once Upon a Time features Hank who is from the Land Without Stories[16] and has a daughter, Violet, who is born in Camelot. Both Hank and Violet are brought over to Earth (dubbed the Land Without Magic in the show) through the Dark Curse and currently live in Storybrooke.
In the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series by James A. Owen, Hank appears in several books as a time-travelling "Messenger" recruited by Mark Twain. Hank is able to travel through time and space at will using an enchanted pocketwatch, which eventually suffers a malfunction that strands him in the time stream. (Sandy and Hello-Central are not mentioned in the series.)
See also[edit]
Novels portal
Connecticut portal
1889 in science fiction
A Dream of John Ball (1889) by William Morris
List of films based on Arthurian legend
Mark Twain bibliography
References[edit]
Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 104. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Facsimile of the original 1st edition.
Jump up ^ Twain, Mark., Clemens, Samuel. (2007), p1 "It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger ... He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company. As the stranger recalls tales of Sir Lancelot, another man enters the castle and, through a first-person narrative establishes himself"
Jump up ^ Twain, Mark., Clemens, Samuel. (2007), p2 "It was during a misunderstanding conducted with crowbars with a fellow we used to call Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher alongside the head that made everything crack"
Jump up ^ Twain, Mark., Clemens, Samuel. (2007), p2 "At the end of an hour we saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley by a winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray fortress, with towers and turrets, the first I had ever seen out of a picture."
Jump up ^ LeMaster, J. R. and James D. Wilson (editors). The Mark Twain Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis, 1993: 174–175. ISBN 082407212X
^ Jump up to: a b Twain, Mark (1929). "An appreciation". A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. New York: Harper & Brothers. pp. ix.
Jump up ^ Rasmussen, R. Kent. Critical Companion to Mark Twain: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, 2007: 96. ISBN 9780-8160-5398-8.
Jump up ^ Bell, Michael Davitt. The Problem of American Realism: Studies in the Cultural History of a Literary Idea. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996: 58. ISBN 0-226-04202-2.
Jump up ^ Mark Twain. Life on the Mississippi, ch 46.
Jump up ^ George Hardy, "Visions in a dark mirror" in Mary Wheatley (ed.), "The Beginnings of Science Fiction"
Jump up ^ "Preface", Allison R. Ensor. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, and Sources, Composition and Publication, Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton (1982).
Jump up ^ Once Upon a Classic, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on IMDb
Jump up ^ "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court". 24 October 1985. Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 7 May 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
Jump up ^ "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". 18 December 1989. Archived from the original on 9 February 2017. Retrieved 7 May 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
Jump up ^ Sagan, Carl (1985). Contact. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 9–10, 13, 342. ISBN 0-671-00410-7.
Jump up ^ "Read an Excerpt From This Book About Once Upon A Time's Henry and Violet". disney.com. 28 November 2017. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
External links[edit]
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Wikimedia Commons has media related to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court at Project Gutenberg
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court public domain audiobook at LibriVox
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1921 silent)
A Connecticut Yankee (1931)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949)
Knight-mare Hare (1955)
Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979)
New Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1988)
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LCCN: n94078555
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values: يانكي من كونيتيكت في بلاط الملك آرثر – Arabic

values: Un ianqui a la cort del Rei Artús – Catalan

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values: Yankee z Connecticutu na dvoře krále Artuše – Czech

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values: En Yankee hos ridderne om det runde bord – Danish

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values: Ein Yankee am Hofe des König Artus – German

values: Ένας Γιάνκης του Κονέκτικατ στην αυλή του βασιλιά Αρθούρου – Greek

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values: Un yanqui en la corte del rey Arturo – Spanish

values: یک یانکی اهل کنتیکت در دربار شاه آرتور – Persian

values: Un Yankee à la cour du roi Arthur – French

values: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court – Indonesian

values: Un americano alla corte di re Artù – Italian

values: ינקי מקונטיקט בחצר המלך ארתור – Hebrew

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values: Egy jenki Arthur király udvarában – Hungarian

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values: アーサー王宮廷のコネチカット・ヤンキー – Japanese

values: Янки из Коннектикута при дворе короля Артура – Russian

values: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court – Simple English

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values: Jenkki kuningas Arthurin hovissa – Finnish

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