Since we are all concerned this week with the actual date of an eclipse in a fictional work set in a mythical reign of a fabled king, I thought I'd consult the actual meteorological log book of the Camelot Climate and Astronomy Centre. 

According to that authority, Mark Twain nailed the eclipse to the second. 

Dennis Kelly

Sent from my iPhone which has a keypad too small for my big fingers and that sometimes writes interesting new words all by itself.    

On Apr 27, 2013, at 7:20 AM, Steve Hoffman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Twain's criticisms of unrealistic action taken by characters in James Fenimore Cooper's books does not make him a person-living-a-glass-house-throwing-stones when it comes to Connecticut Yankee.  I respectfully disagree with the comment suggest Twain was guilty of some sort of Cooper-like "laziness" as a writer here.
> 
> That book has its premise a completely fantastic, make-believe time travel so of course that alone gives the author license to incorporate fantastic, unrealistic elements in his book.   (In fact, I've heard tell that Connecticut Yankee is perhaps the first "time-travel" novel.)   However, once the reader suspends credibility as to the time-travel, the motivations and actions of Hank Morgan (and the description of society that he encounters) are completely reasonable and have the ring of truth to them.  So much so that, IMO, Connecticut Yankee is the one they should be teaching in high schools;  give Huck Finn the occasional rest, as great as that book is.   There are insights relating to society, economics, religious, technology (both its positive and negative ramifications) and human nature that cry out to be heard and appreciated in today's world.  Indeed, I would say the book is perhaps Twain's MOST relevant work for today's world.  (Well, that and the "War Prayer.")
> 
> In a novel, especially one that posits a magical sort of time travel, the "actual" likelihood that someone would know the dates of ancient solar eclipses is quite irrelevant.  The overriding point of the solar eclipse incident that the "modern" man was able to use his scientific knowledge in order to gain leverage over more primitive folks -- not because they understood the concept of science, but precisely because they didn't (and therefore attributed supernatural powers to him).
> 
> And my attitude is: why worry about whether dates of fictional accounts in a work of fiction corresponded exactly to the calendar date of an actual similar event that occurred in real life.  (It might be a very minor footnote in some annotated edition of Connecticut Yankee, but it no way detracts from the greatest of one of Twain's very greatest works.)
> 
> -Steve Hoffman
> Takoma Park MD