Mark Twains classic satirical tale of race and identity. Roxana, a light-skinned slave nurse on a large Southern plantation, is desperate to give her son a better chance at life than she had ever enjoyed, and so she switches him with the masters son. Years later, when Roxanas real son has turned to gambling, murder, and theft, it is the country lawyer, Puddnhead Wilson, who unmasks the true identity of the two. Considered Twains most courageous work, this short novel is one of the most sensitive treatments of slavery in American fiction.