The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

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The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today is a satirical and political novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner first published in 1873. It satirizes greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America. Although not one of Twain's best-known works, it has appeared in more than 100 editions since its original publication. Twain and Warner had originally planned to issue the novel with illustrations by Thomas Nast. The book is notable for two reasons as it is the only novel Twain wrote with a collaborator and its title became synonymous with graft, materialism, and corruption in public life. The novel gave the era its nickname: the period of U.S. history from the 1870s to about 1900 is now referred to as the Gilded Age.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Mark Twain, Public domain