The Mysterious Stranger

While The Mysterious Stranger was published in 1916, after Twain’s death, he wrote various drafts throughout the Gilded Age, which spanned approximately thirty years, from the 1870s to the early 1900s and 1910s. Extreme wealth inequality, widespread poverty, and power consolidated among a small but mighty ruling class defined the period in the United States and Europe. Twain’s vivid depictions of human suffering in industrial settings of time, as well as the effects of imperialism, can be interpreted as a critique of this time period. It is impossible to determine Twain’s original intent of the novel due to intervention from his literary executor. However, as seen in his more famous novels such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain frequently employed political commentary in his work. Therefore, had he been alive to have more direct oversight over the manuscript’s publication, it is possible that we would be presented with a more robust political commentary.

Many of the events described in The Mysterious Stranger are evocative of issues associated with the Gilded Age. This association is prominently displayed in Chapter 6, when Satan takes Theodor to the French factory. A particularly pressing issue of the Gilded Age was poverty and wealth inequality.