Another best book of all time joins the Writers' Club!
About this book:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.
The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri (based on the actual town of Hannibal, Missouri), on the shore of the Mississippi River, sometime between 1835 (when the first steamboat sailed down the Mississippi) and 1845. Huckleberry "Huck" Finn (the protagonist and first-person narrator) and his friend, Thomas "Tom" Sawyer, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures (detailed in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer). Huck explains how he is placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her stringent sister, Miss Watson, are attempting to civilize him and teach him religion. Finding civilized life confining, his spirits are raised somewhat when Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night past Miss Watson's slave Jim, to meet up with Tom's gang of self-proclaimed "robbers." Just as the gang's activities begin to bore Huck, he is suddenly interrupted by the reappearance of his shiftless father, "Pap", an abusive alcoholic. Knowing that Pap would only spend the money on alcohol, Huck is successful in preventing Pap from acquiring his fortune; however, Pap still gains custody of Huck and leaves town with him.
Pap forcibly moves Huck to his isolated cabin in the woods on the Illinois shoreline. Due to Pap's drunken violence and habit of keeping Huck locked inside the cabin, Huck, during one of his father's absences, elaborately fakes his own death, escapes the cabin, and sets off down river. He settles comfortably, on Jackson's Island on the Mississippi. Here, Huck reunites with Jim, Miss Watson's slave. Jim has also run away after he overheard Miss Watson planning to sell him "down the river" (to presumably more brutal owners). Jim plans to make his way to the town of Cairo in Illinois, a free state, so that he can later buy the rest of his enslaved family's freedom...
(source: Wikipedia)
About the author:
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel."
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which provided the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. After an apprenticeship with a printer, he worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his singular lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. In 1865, his humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published, based on a story he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp California where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought international attention, even being translated to classic Greek. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
Though Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he invested in ventures that lost a great deal of money, notably the Paige Compositor, which failed because of its complexity and imprecision. In the wake of these financial setbacks he filed for protection from his creditors via a bankruptcy filing, and with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers eventually overcame his financial troubles. Twain chose to pay all his pre-bankruptcy creditors in full, though he had no responsibility to do this under the law.
Twain was born shortly after a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it," too. He died the day following the comet's subsequent return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age," and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature."
(source: Wikipedia)
About the Midwest Journal Writers' Club:
This was created by popular request to enable any beginning or established author to improve their skills by studying quality editions of classic bestselling fiction. Join at http://midwestjournalpress.com
Related Sites:
Why Black People Can Use the N-Word: A Perspective | Word. The ... - In my Texts and Ideas class, we just read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which the n-word was used many, many times. Even reading it, there is a definite discomfort and feeling of shame–for instance, I felt guilty ...
Your Top 10 influential books? Here are mine - 10. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or David Copperfield by Robert Benchley. David Ammons says: April 5, 2010 at 4:28 PM. Uh, oh. I forgot Ken Kesey stuff, especially One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And Huckleberry Finn.
Philosophy, Power and Truth- Mark Twain | Feeling Newsy - The third section of “Mark Twain's Humor, Genius and Philosophy” was focused on philosophy and Mark Twain as a moralist. For someone just starting The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this might seem like a shock since it ...
Huckleberry Fi (n's removed) — continued | The Book Haven - Actually, this headline came from Brandwine Books here, but we liked and so we stole it. Commenting on the Entertainment Weekly article (not our first article which we posted on Dec. 31 here) about Alan Gribben's ...
The Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords- Violence and Mealtime in ... - One of the most memorable scenes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the feud between the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords. For some reason, it stuck out to me the most in the book. Because that section was so ...
Suspicion and Stereotypes in Huck Finn (Ch3-Ch7) | Feeling Newsy - In my last post I talked about how Huck is a voice of reason and truth in Mark Twain's novel. For a truthful character, however, he is pretty superstitious. Huck starts out in chapter 4 spilling the salt and not being able to throw ...
Your Top 10 influential books? Here are mine - 10. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or David Copperfield by Robert Benchley. David Ammons says: April 5, 2010 at 4:28 PM. Uh, oh. I forgot Ken Kesey stuff, especially One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And Huckleberry Finn.
Philosophy, Power and Truth- Mark Twain | Feeling Newsy - The third section of “Mark Twain's Humor, Genius and Philosophy” was focused on philosophy and Mark Twain as a moralist. For someone just starting The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this might seem like a shock since it ...
Huckleberry Fi (n's removed) — continued | The Book Haven - Actually, this headline came from Brandwine Books here, but we liked and so we stole it. Commenting on the Entertainment Weekly article (not our first article which we posted on Dec. 31 here) about Alan Gribben's ...
The Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords- Violence and Mealtime in ... - One of the most memorable scenes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the feud between the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords. For some reason, it stuck out to me the most in the book. Because that section was so ...
Suspicion and Stereotypes in Huck Finn (Ch3-Ch7) | Feeling Newsy - In my last post I talked about how Huck is a voice of reason and truth in Mark Twain's novel. For a truthful character, however, he is pretty superstitious. Huck starts out in chapter 4 spilling the salt and not being able to throw ...
