“Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped teething.”
- Date
- 1894
- Attribution
- Source identified
- Voice / speaker
- Epigraph / fictional source voice · Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
What does this quote mean?
Twain shrinks a grand biblical origin story to the ordinary misery of teething, using disproportion between subject and complaint as the comic mechanism.
Where does it come from?
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter IV epigraph; a comic Calendar maxim rather than dialogue by a character in the chapter.
Who voices the line?
Epigraph / fictional source voice · Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. Twain presents this wording as a chapter-epigraph Calendar maxim. The Calendar is a fictional framing device / source voice rather than uncomplicated autobiography by Twain.
The source author and the local speaker can be different, especially in fiction, drama, dialogue and poetry.
How should this attribution be read?
This wording is connected with the named source shown above. Translations and editions can vary, so consult the source note when exact wording matters.