The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

In the afterward, Twain mentions that this evolved as two stories. His initial focus was on two Italian twins. They later became minor characters as the book focuses on Pudd'nhead and Tom Driscoll. 

The book begins with Pudd'nhead. He went to a small town attempting to practice law. However, the people thought a joke he told made him sound stupid, so they declared him a Pudd'nhead and he could never get a law practice.

The story then pivots to Roxy and Tom Driscoll. Roxy is a slave that is 1/16th black. She has a child that is 1/32nd black that is born at the same time as her master's son. They look similar and she raises them together. One day she switches them. Her son ends up being raised as Tom Driscoll, while the master's son is raised as a slave. She is granted her freedom, but loses her savings in a bank failure. Her becomes an entitled man with a gambling problem who has little respect for her. She tries to ask for money from him, but resorts to blackmail to get it. Tom has lost most of his money and has resorted to stealing from townspeople. He often dressed as a woman to carry out the crimes.

Two Italian twins come to room in the town. They become famous in the town. However, they end up in conflict with Tom and his rich Uncle. Later Tom kills his uncle and frames the Italians. It seems a slam dunk case.

Then Pudd'nhead comes back into play and it turns into a crime book. He has collected fingerprints from his time in town. He is able to use this to match the fingerprint of Tom to the murder weapon. Furthermore, he identifies Tom's fingerprint as changing from his birth prints. He reveals that Tom is really the son of a slave.

The two boys switched as infants can now be returned to their true rolls. Alas, it doesn't work out well. Tom had spent his life as a slave and is illiterate. He cannot manage in white society. Meanwhile, black society shuns him since he is white. The slave boy was sentenced to prison. However, he was later restored to the estate as "property" and is sold down river.

The book shows the ludicrousness of long-term decisions based on short-term events. Wilson is forever a "Pudd'nhead" from one comment. "Single drop" race identification is fairly nonsense. With significant intermarriage it does not make sense to focus on single "races". Slavery based on race was destined to fail.