By Mark Twain

From Wikipedia: The Prince and the Pauper is a novel by American author Mark Twain. It was first published in 1881 in Canada, before its 1882 publication in the United States.[1] The novel represents Twain's first attempt at historical fiction. Set in 1547, it tells the story of two young boys who were born on the same day and are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive, alcoholic father in Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London, and Edward VI of England, son of Henry VIII of England. Plot: Tom Canty, the youngest son of a very poor family living in Offal Court located in London, has been abused by his father and grandmother, but is encouraged by the local priest, who taught him to read and write. Loitering around the palace gates one day, he sees Edward Tudor, the Prince of Wales. Coming too close in his intense excitement, Tom is caught and nearly beaten by the Royal Guards. However, Edward stops them and invites Tom into his palace chamber. There, the two boys get to know one another and are fascinated by each other's life. They have an uncanny resemblance to each other and learn they were even born on the same day, so they decide to swap clothes “temporarily". The Prince hides an item, which the reader later learns……

By Susanna Lee.

The cynical but kind-hearted detective is the soul of the classic hard-boiled story, that chronicle of world-weary urban pessimism. In Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Decline of Moral Authority, Susanna Lee argues that this fiction functions as a measure for individual responsibility in the modern world and that it demonstrates the enduring status of individual conscience across a variety of cultural crises. In this major rethinking of the hard-boiled genre, Lee suggests that, whether in Los Angeles, New York, or Paris, the hard-boiled detective is the guardian of individual moral authority and the embodiment of ideals in a corrupt environment. Lee traces the history of the hard-boiled detective through the twentieth century and on both sides of the Atlantic (France and the United States), tying the idea of morality to the character model in nuanced, multifaceted ways. When the heroic model devolves, the very conceptual validity of individual moral authority can seem to devolve as well. Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Decline of Moral Authority charts the evolution of that character model of the hard-boiled hero, the mid-century deterioration of his exemplarity, and twenty-first-century endeavors to resuscitate the accountable hero. The history of hard-boiled crime fiction tells nothing less than the story of individual autonomy and accountability in modern Western culture.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2016. 248p.

By Charles Dickens.

Dickens traveled to America in 1842 and wrote letters home to his friend John Forster. These were published in a book in the same year. It was not received well because of his criticism of American manners, slavery, and the American press.

Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1842) 240 pages.