the land-purchase plot parallels Twain's father's purchase of a Tennessee parcel whose prospective sale, Twain wrote in his autobiography "kept us hoping and hoping, during 40 years, and forsook us at last." The main action of the story takes place in Washington, D.C., and satirizes the greed and corruption of the governing class. Twain also satirizes the social pretensions of the newly rich. Laura's Washington visitors include "Mrs. Patrique Oreille (pronounced O-relay)", the wife of "a wealthy Frenchman from Cork", indicating the O'Reilly family has altered their last name to hide their Irish origins. In the end, Laura fails to convince Congress to purchase the Hawkins land. She kills her married lover but is found not guilty of the crime, with the help of a sympathetic jury and a clever lawyer. However, after a failed attempt to pursue a career on the lecture circuit, her spirit is broken, and she dies regretting her fall from innocence. Washington Hawkins, the eldest son, who has drifted through life on his father's early promise that he would be "one of the richest men in the world", finally gives up the family's ownership of the still-unimproved land parcel when he cannot afford to pay its $180 of taxes. He also appears ready to overcome his passivity: "The spell is broken, the life-long curse is ended!" Philip, drawing upon his engineering skills, discovers coal on Mr. Bolton's land, wins Ruth Bolton's heart and appears destined to enjoy a prosperous and conventionally happy marriage. Henry and Sellers, presumably, will continue to live daily by their wits while others pay their bills. Major themes The theme of the novel is that the lust for getting rich through land speculation pervades society, illustrated by the Hawkinses as well as Ruth's well-educated father, who nevertheless cannot resist becoming enmeshed in self-evidently dubious money-making schemes. The book does not touch upon other themes now associated with the "Gilded Age", such as industrialization, monopolies, and the corruption of urban political machines. Development history Charles Dudley Warner, a writer and editor, was a neighbor and good friend of Mark Twain in Hartford, Connecticut. According to Twain's biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, their wives challenged Twain and Warner at dinner to write a better novel than what they were used to reading. Twain wrote the first 11 chapters, followed by 12 chapters written by Warner. Most of the remaining chapters were also written by