| Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
| Mark Twain |
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, first published in America in January 1885, has always been in trouble. According to Ernest Hemingway, it was the "one book" from which "all modern American literature" came, and contemporary critics and scholars have treated it as one of the greatest American works of art. Of all Mark Twain's novels, it was also the one that sold best at its initial appearance. On the other hand, it was condemned by many reviewers in Mark Twain's time as coarse and by many commentators in our time as racist. In 1885 it was banished from the shelves of the Concord Public Library. The novel chronicles the adventures of and relationship between Huckleberry Finn and the runaway slave Jim, as they flee south on the Mississippi River. During that journey, the pair have a series of adventures that bring them closer together and expose them to the flaws in Southern culture. |
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, writer, and lecturer. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and his numerous quotes and sayings. Although Twain was confounded by financial and business affairs, he enjoyed immense public popularity. His keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri, to John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton Clemens. When Twain was four, his family moved to Hannibal, a port town on the Mississippi River that would serve as the inspiration for the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At that time, Missouri was a slave state in the union and young Twain was familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he later explored in his writing. Twain was colorblind, a condition that fueled his witty banter in the social circles of the day. In March of 1847 when Twain was eleven, his father died of pneumonia. As a teenager Twain worked as an apprentice printer, and by sixteen he began writing humorous articles and newspaper sketches. When he was eighteen, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. When he was 22 years old, Twain returned to Missouri and worked as a riverboat pilot earning $250, a "princely amount", until trade was interrupted by the American Civil War in 1861. |
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