Mark Twain is said to have written Pudd’nhead Wilson (1892) in a pessimistic mood when his financial situation was rapidly deteriorating. This article essays to examine the novel and its background in search of the cause of his pessimism.

The book is composed of two similar stories, “Pudd’nhead Wilson” and “Those Extraordinary Twins,” with the same characters in the same place during the same time period, both of which, however, deal differently with elections. In the latter, Siamese twins run for municipal positions from different parties, only one of them to be elected as an alderman of the city. Meanwhile, in the former story, elections are described in a less complicated way: the twins, physically separated, stand as candidates from the same party, both of them to be defeated. It is noticeable that “Pudd’nhead Wilson” specifies the years of its story: it begins in 1830, a few foreshadowing incidents happen in 1845, and in 1853 appear the main episodes including the municipal elections. This article examines the mid-19th century situation of Missouri State, especially the author’s home town Hannibal, in order to trace his pessimism back to his early life.

Eighteen fifty-three was when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was proposed and fiercely disputed, and the next year the act was approved. The act allowed the two territories to become federal states of slavery but also prepared for the transcontinental railroad expected to be constructed in both or either of the two states which adjoin Missouri State. Railroad construction was a driving force of economic growth on the frontier, which brought forth urban areas including Hannibal, and a booming economy including land speculations all over the state. The story uses the specific year to make readers imagine that behind the sleepy town in fiction, real societies were undergoing economic advancement, leading to the urbanization of Missouri State.

In “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” the grandees of the old community are plunged into tragedy by an urban character, Tom Driscoll, who is reared by a land speculator and, while studying in the East, learns city fashion and gambling, and, after frequenting the big city of St. Louis for gambling, ends up killing his foster father for money. The tragedy represents urbanization in mid-19th century Missouri society.

The author’s father, John Marshall Clemens, who immigrated from the south and ended up planted in Hannibal, had repeated financial collapses due to land speculations, which the very young Twain witnessed. Apart from his financial troubles, John Marshall was a prominent citizen engaging in urban reform activities in the town. It is possible, however, to suppose from reading the novel that experiences in his very young days lead the author to think his own financial trouble originated in his father’s inclination toward speculation, for which, in the story, he seems to blame the age of economic boom and urbanization.