Ford's take on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court, though Twain's story is satire and Ford's tale is not.

Ford is supposed to have been inspired to write this book after reading Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The book is not a direct response to Twain's, but Ford imagines the modern man adapting with relative grace to the Medieval period, not trying to change it to suit him.

Mr. Sorrell is an early twentieth century publisher - a decent man, but I suspect Ford of getting some revenge for his frustrations in publishing. Sorrell is flung back to the 14th century after a train crash. He is in England at the time after the death of Edward II when Queen-Mother Isabella and Mortimer were ruling in the name of Edward III.

In a paradox, Mr. Sorrell had taken as collateral a family heirloom, a golden cross brought from the Holy Land by the slave of a Crusader ancestor. In his hospital gown and still bearing the cross, Sorrell becomes the "slave" delivering the "miracle-working" cross, and is welcomed (and fought over) as a holy man. Sorrell insists upon being given clothing, as he is not about to run around in a night shirt, whereas his bemused hosts think that his miraculous garment, so shiny and so white, is much more fitting.

Sorrel is originally convinced that he was wandered into a pageant, and keeps asking about trains to London. Finally, he realizes that the people he takes for lunatics really believe that they are in the 14th century, and gradually accepts that he really is in the past. The story is funny, swash-buckling, informative and thought-provoking.

The portrayal of the Middle Ages, chiefly focused on the mundanities of life among the upper classes, is wonderfully vivid. The nuns squabble with their abbess, bandits roam the hills, corpses hang from trees as an object-lesson, food is nothing like he expects, and the mistress of the castle scorns the idea of night-lights as allowing the untrustworthy serfs to roam the castle undetected. It is somewhat romanticized by its focus on aristocrats, but still more real than most historical novels. I was quite caught up in the story, although I found the extended ending a little peremptory (although heavily foreshadowed).

The modern reader may be a little troubled, especially if they have just read Mark Twain's savage socio-political satire, at the lack of sympathy that both Sorrell and Ford have for the lower classes. The serfs who dislike their children being bodily hauled off to serve in the castle are regarded as lazy and sullen. Which is no doubt how the contemporary upper classes saw them, but which is a little disturbing from two 20th century men, i.e. Sorrell and Ford. Since Ford pictures Sorrell as ennobled by his time-travelling experiences, it would be hard to argue that this isn't Ford's opinion.

This might be a spoiler, although it is revealed on the back of the book: Sorrell is eventually returned to his own time, which he has come to see as vacuous, but resolves to go resolutely into the future. Although the end of the trip to the Middle Ages is foreshadowed, I found it a bit abrupt, almost as though the author had reached a particular number of pages and decided to wrap it up. I have a better opinion of modern life, but for the reader who thinks that Medieval life was much more satisfying, well, there is no arguing taste. ( )