This coming-of-age story captures a vanished world of outdoor action and introduces Mark Twain’s two most enduring literary characters, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. In a novel that Twain termed a “hymn to boyhood, ” Tom and Huck fish and swim in the Mississippi River, search for buried treasure, and hide in a haunted house. Tom Sawyer falls for pretty Becky Thatcher, tricks his pals into painting a fence for him, and stages an elaborate prank on the schoolmaster. Around the edges of this idyllic boy-life, however, loom dangerous events in the fictional village of St. Petersburg: Tom and Huck witness a midnight murder in a graveyard, the killer escapes from the courtroom while Tom is testifying, Tom and Becky become lost in a labyrinthine cave, and two sinister villains plot robbery and revenge against a wealthy widow. This Original Text Edition faithfully follows the wording of the first edition, and the editor supplies a historical and literary introduction as well as a guide to Twain’s satirical targets.
About the author
Fifty years of research and travel resulted in ALAN GRIBBEN’s two-volume Mark Twain’s Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading. Gribben was the editor of the Mark Twain Journal: The Author and His Era and for fifteen years he reviewed books and articles about Mark Twain for American Literary Scholarship, An Annual. His New South editions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn offered altered versions of the texts, which omitted racial slurs. He also coedited Mark Twain on the Move: A Travel Reader. Gribben’s Harry Huntt Ransom: Intellect in Motion was the first biography about the eminent library founder at the University of Texas at Austin. Forty-five years as an English professor concluded with Gribben’s retirement from the classroom in 2019.
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