The Paris AtlasCharting the artists, works, and places worth returning to.

A character in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Sandy (Alisande la Carteloise)

A young woman who comes to court for a champion, leads Hank on a quest to free forty-five princesses, and later becomes his wife.

What they want

She wants to free the captive princesses and, later, to keep her husband and child safe.

The book

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtMark Twain, 1889

A Hartford factory boss wakes up near Camelot in the year 528, fakes a miracle with an eclipse, and tries to bring the nineteenth century to King Arthur's England.

View the book

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Sandy talks without stopping, in the long winding style of the old romances, and Hank mocks her for it. She is also brave, loyal and kind. Hank's feelings about her change more than his feelings about anyone else in the book.

How Sandy (Alisande la Carteloise) Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • No papers, only her wordIn Chapter XI she gives her name as the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise from the land of Moder. Hank asks for documents, and she cannot see why her word is not enough.
  • Fresh as a squirrelIn Chapter XIII she has slept well on the ground and is cheerful, while Hank is stiff and miserable in his armor.
  • Sandy's taleIn Chapter XV she tells a story in the style of the old romances that runs on so long that Hank loses whole chapters of it.
  • The princessesIn Chapter XX Hank sees only pigs where she sees enchanted princesses. He buys the pigs so she can bring them home, and she hugs them with tears of joy.
  • Finding him at the gallowsIn Chapter XLI Hank says she hunted all over Britain for him and found him at the hanging outside London.
  • Naming the babyIn Chapter XLI she names their daughter after the words Hank calls out in his sleep, believing them the name of a lost friend. The words are Hello-Central.

If you like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Four books that share themes, tone, or setting with this one.

If you like Mark Twain

Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.

  • Illustrated portrait of Louis-Ferdinand Céline

    Louis-Ferdinand Céline

    The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.

    View author
  • Illustrated portrait of Henry Miller

    Henry Miller

    The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.

    View author
  • Illustrated portrait of Mary Shelley

    Mary Shelley

    The author of Frankenstein, who first saw Paris at sixteen as a runaway. In the summer of 1814 she crossed from England to Calais with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and her stepsister Claire Clairmont, spent a week trapped in an expensive Paris hotel with no money, then bought a donkey and walked south-east across a France still wrecked by the Napoleonic wars. That journey became her first published book. Two years later, on a lake in Switzerland, she began her second.

    View author