Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
By Mark Twain
In St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River, during the 1830s–1840s, Huckleberry “Huck” Finn has come into a considerable sum of money following The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and is placed under the strict guardianship of the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. The women attempt to civilize him, but Huck prefers to have adventures with his friend Tom Sawyer.
His father, “Pap”, an abusive alcoholic, returns to town and tries to appropriate Huck’s fortune. When this fails, Pap kidnaps Huck and imprisons him in a cabin in the woods. To escape his father, Huck elaborately fakes his murder and sets off downriver. He settles on Jackson’s Island, where he reunites with Miss Watson’s slave, Jim, who ran away after overhearing she was planning to sell him. Huck decides to go downriver with Jim to Cairo, in the free state of Illinois. After heavy flooding, the two find a timber raft and an entire house floating down the river. Inside, Jim finds a body that has been shot to death but prevents Huck from viewing the corpse. Huck sneaks into town and discovers a reward for Jim, who is suspected of killing Huck; the two flee on their raft. Huck and Jim encounter a grounded steamer, the Walter Scott, where two thieves discuss murdering a third.
Finding that their raft has drifted away, Huck and Jim flee in the thieves’ boat before being noticed. They see their raft again and sink the thieves’ boat, keeping their loot. To assuage his conscience, Huck tricks a watchman into rescuing the stranded thieves. Huck and Jim are separated in a fog, and when they reunite, Huck tricks Jim into thinking he dreamed the entire incident. Jim is disappointed when Huck admits the truth. Huck is surprised by Jim’s solid feelings and apologizes.
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Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, essayist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.
Biography
He was praised as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced”, and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature”. His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the “Great American Novel”. Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) and Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.
Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later set the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer early in his career and worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to his older brother Orion Clemens’ newspaper. Then, he became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, providing him with the material for Life on the Mississippi (1883). Soon after, Twain headed west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. He first achieved success as a writer with the humorous story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, which was published in 1865; it was based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought him international attention.
He wrote both fiction and non-fiction. As his fame grew, he became a much sought-after speaker. His wit and satire, both in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
Mark Twain
