The Gilded Age
by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
- First published
- 1873
- Reading level
- Plain English
- Price
- Free
About the book
"The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today" by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner is a satirical novel published in 1873. It follows a poor rural family's attempts to strike it rich by selling their vast Tennessee land, while their adopted daughter Laura becomes a Washington lobbyist seeking congressional support. Meanwhile, two young men pursue fortune through land speculation. The novel skewers the greed, materialism, and political corruption of post-Civil War America—so effectively that it named an entire era of American history.
- Satire
- Political fiction
- Washington (D.C.)
- Legislators
- Speculation
- Political corruption
Updated September 2026. Public domain in the USA. Text and summary from Project Gutenberg eBook #3178. The Gilded Age on Wikipedia.
More free books by Mark Twain
About Mark TwainLife on the Mississippi
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Prince and the Pauper
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Roughing It
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
The Innocents Abroad
Following the Equator
Sketches New and Old
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
A Tramp Abroad
