The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

"A jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry they returned the inevitable American verdict which has been so familiar to our ears all the days of our lives-'NOBODY TO BLAME." -The Gilded Age, (1873)

The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), is a two-volume satirical novel written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner describing late 19^th-century Washington D.C. and its cast of characters of corrupt politicians and greedy "robber barons." This period of political corruption and ostentatious materialism became known as the Gilded Age, named after this book.

The Gilded Age, offering insight in the problems of growing wealth inequality, resembling those of early 21^st century, is a true classic with lessons for modern times.

MARK TWAIN (1835-1910), pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an American writer, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer who became one of America's greatest and most popular writers. Twain was born in Florida, Missouri, and grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, the state which influenced much of his writing. Twain acquired fame for his travel stories, The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), and Life on the Mississippi (1883), and for his boyhood adventure novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (1829 -1900), American essayist and novelist served on the editorial staffs of the Hartford Press, the Hartford Courant, and Harpers Magazine. He was the first president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and published numerous books.