The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Hardcover)
The American novel ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is Mark Twain's masterwork. In this timeless story of childhood exploration, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer's closest friend, takes center stage. Huck and Jim, a fugitive slave, float a log raft down the massive Mississippi River in order to escape their alcoholic father and the Widow Douglas's enlightening influence. The two escapees become closer as a result of the interesting people and exciting circumstances they come across, such as a pair of aristocratic conmen intent on robbing Arkansas blind and vicious thieves hiding in an abandoned steamboat, until Huck is forced to decide between Jim's freedom and his own salvation.
It is one of the first significant books published in the American vernacular, and is fundamental to the identity of the country. It is still relevant today because of its nuanced handling of weighty subjects like the ills of slavery, the individual versus society, and the competing drives of human nature.
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About the Author
Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910). He was born and brought up in the American state of Missouri and, because of his father's death, he left school to earn his living when he was only twelve. He was a great adventurer and travelled round America as a printer; prospected for gold and set off for South America to earn his fortune. He returned to become a steam-boat pilot on the Mississippi River, close to where he had grown up. The Civil War put an end to steam-boating and Clemens briefly joined the Confederate army - although the rest of his family were Unionists! He had already tried his hand at newspaper reporting and now became a successful journalist. He started to use the alias Mark Twain during the Civil War and it was under this pen name that he became a famous travel writer. He took the name from his steam-boat days - it was the river pilots' cry to let their men know that the water was two fathoms deep.
Mark Twain was always nostalgic about his childhood and in 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published, based on his own experiences. The book was soon recognised as a work of genius and eight years later the sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was published. The great writer Ernest Hemingway claimed that 'All modern literature stems from this one book.'
Mark Twain was soon famous all over the world. He made a fortune from writing and lost it on a typesetter he invented. He then made another fortune and lost it on a bad investment. He was an impulsive, hot-tempered man but was also quite sentimental and superstitious. He was born when Halley's Comet was passing the Earth and always believed he would die when it returned - this is exactly what happened.