Twain's first encounter with the Morte d'Arthur occurred in 1880, when someone in his household bought Sidney Lanier's bowdlerized edition, The Boy's King Arthur.[3] Whether he read this children's version or not is not known. However he certainly read the unexpurgated work after his close friend George Washington Cable recommended it to him in November 1884. The pair were travelling on the lecture circuit as the "Twins of Genius" during the winter of 1884-1885 when Cable spotted the Morte on the front table of a Rochester, New York bookstore that both were perusing. Cable pointed to the volume and said "you will never lay it down until you have read it cover to cover."[4] Twain bought this copy and read it in nearly one sitting during a train ride to their next lecture date. After his own book's great success, Twain credited Cable for his inspiration, referring to him as "the Godfather of my book."[4]
Soon thereafter, in December 1884, Twain conceived of the idea behind A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and worked on its realization between 1885 and 1889.[5] The bulk of its composition was done at Twain's summer home at Elmira, New York and was completed at Hartford, Connecticut.[6] It was first published in England by Chatto & Windus under the title A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur in December 1889.[7]
Writer and critic William Dean Howells called it Twain's best work and "an object-lesson in democracy".[8] The work was met with some indignation in Great Britain, where it was perceived as "a direct attack on [its] hereditary and aristocratic institutions".[6]
