The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (with an Introduction by Brander Matthews)

By Mark Twain

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is considered by many to be the greatest of all American novels. This sequel to Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” is a first person narrative told by its title character. The novel picks up where “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” leaves off. Huck Finn who is now wealthy with the discovery of treasure at the end of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” finds himself in great danger from his abusive drunkard father who wishes to cash in on Huck’s fortune. Fearing for his life Huck believes that he must run away from his home with the Widow Douglas and her Sister, Miss Watson. Huck fakes his own death and escapes to Jackson’s Island. There he finds Miss Watson’s escaped slave, Jim. Together they escape down the Mississippi River on a raft. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a story told in the time of slavery with language that embodies the regional dialects that are common to Twain’s work and the Mississippi River Valley in which Twain grew up. The novel is as much a biting and satirical commentary on slavery, religion, and civilized society as it is a light-hearted comedy and buddy travel story through Midwestern 19th century America. This edition includes an introduction by Brander Matthews and a biographical afterword.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781420951615

Mark Twain

Mark Twain, who was born Samuel L. Clemens in Missouri in 1835, wrote some of the most enduring works of literature in the English language, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was his last completed book—and, by his own estimate, his best. Its acquisition by Harper & Brothers allowed Twain to stave off bankruptcy. He died in 1910. 

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THE ADVENTURES

OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

By MARK TWAIN

Introduction by

BRANDER MATTHEWS

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

By Mark Twain

Introduction by Brander Matthews

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5160-8

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5161-5

This edition copyright © 2015. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: A detail of Huckleberry Finn, Watt, John Millar (1895-1975) / Private Collection / © Look and Learn / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Notice

Explanatory

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVIII

Chapter XXXIX

Chapter XL

Chapter XLI

Chapter XLII

Chapter The Last

Introduction

I

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Missouri on November 30, 1835, and he spent his boyhood in the rambling town of Hannibal on the Mississippi. When he was sixteen he learned to set type, and at the age of eighteen he wandered as a journeyman printer, coming as far east as New York. When he was twenty-two he became a pilot on the Mississippi, but before he was twenty-six the Civil War broke out and interrupted the navigation of the mighty river. After a brief and inglorious experience as a volunteer in the Confederate army he went out to Nevada. There, in the next year or two, he began to write for the newspapers under the pen name of Mark Twain. In time he journeyed to San Francisco, occasionally contributing to journals in the eastern cities. His Jumping Frog was first printed in 1865; and it gave its title to a volume of humorous sketches published in 1867.

When this was printed he had already appeared as a lecturer, first in San Francisco and later in New York, and he continued to lecture almost to the end of his life, becoming early a most effective speaker. In 1867 he was one of a shipload of Americans who went to the Mediterranean, Egypt, the Holy Land, Italy, and France; and from the letters he wrote for a California newspaper during this trip he made a book of travels, The Innocents Abroad. This was issued in 1869, and it instantly made the name of Mark Twain famous wherever the English language was spoken. Shortly after his marriage in 1870 he settled down in Hartford, where he was to reside for nearly a quarter of a century. There he wrote Roughing It, a vivid record of his experiences in Nevada ten years earlier; it was published in 1872. He collaborated with Charles Dudley Warner in a story called The Gilded Age, from which he extracted (not too skillfully) a play, devised to disclose the personality of Colonel Sellers.

His first boy’s book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, was issued in 1875; and in these years he also collected two or three volumes of his humorous sketches. A visit to Europe supplied him with material which he elaborated in A Tramp Abroad, published in 1880, and in the years immediately following he wrote The Prince and the Pauper (1882) and an account of his career as a pilot, Life on the Mississippi (1883). This was a period of abundant productivity; and in 1885 he sent forth a sequel to Tom Sawyer—The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—which won immediate recognition as one of the masterpieces of American fiction. A third story, having the Mississippi as its background, Pudd’nhead Wilson, was published in 1894. In the interval he had issued other books, of which the most important was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which appeared in 1889.

He had already established himself as a publisher, issuing the Personal Memoirs of General Grant, the sale of which was so widespread that he was able to pay the author’s widow four hundred thousand dollars. But this good fortune did not long continue, and after the panic of 1893 he had to make an assignment for the benefit of his creditors. He was then nearly sixty; and, like Sir Walter Scott at almost the same age, he found himself heavily burdened with debt. He made a lecture tour around the world, and he utilized his observations during this voyage in Following the Equator, published in 1897. From the proceeds of his lectures and the profits of his books (including his reverent and beautiful story of Joan of Arc, issued anonymously in 1896) he was able to pay off his creditors.

The last years of his life were passed partly in Europe and partly in America, either in New York or at Redding, Connecticut, where he had built a house. He had become one of the foremost figures in literature, with a reputation extending outside the English language. He was chosen as one of the seven organizing members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he was gratified by an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. But these later years of his life were saddened by the successive deaths of his wife and of two of his daughters. He continued to publish, although his later books added little to his fame, excepting only the stern apologue, called The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1899), one of the most masterly of short stories. On his seventieth birthday tributes of affectionate regard came to him from all parts of the world. He survived this commemoration for four years, dying in April, 1910, in his new home at Redding.

Since his death his life has been amply narrated by Mr. Albert Bigelow Paine, who set forth his career with intimate knowledge, abundant sympathy, and unfailing tact. Mr. Paine has also edited with equal discretion two volumes of Mark Twain’s letters; and a collection of his speeches has also been issued in a single volume. Attention should be called to My Mark Twain, in which Mr. Howells gathered the series of cordial criticisms he had written from time to time during his long years of friendship.

II

When we set out to study Mark Twain’s work we find ourselves face to face with two salient facts: he was very multifarious and he was very unequal. He wrote humorous sketches, books of travel, essays, literary criticisms, reminiscences, plays, and novels; some of his novels are more or less historical (Joan of Arc and The Prince and the Pauper); others are more or less autobiographic (Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn); and a third group are more or less fantastic and symbolic (A Connecticut Yankee and The Mysterious Stranger). Few American authors have been as affluent in as many kinds of literary endeavor; and his widespread popularity was due in part at least to this divergence in his appeal to different classes of readers. He had something to say to all sorts and conditions of men; he said this in many varying ways, and he did not always say it with certainty and success. It is only now and again that he is at his best, although it is also true that he is far more rarely at his worst. He was not a wise critic of his own work; he wrote often upon the impulse of the moment; he tended to trust too much in his invention, which was sometimes inclined to be artificial and arbitrary, and he did not always recognize that his imagination was freest and surest when it was used to interpret actual facts, either observed by his own eyes or communicated to him by word of mouth.

For Joan of Arc, for The Prince and the Pauper, and even for A Connecticut Yankee he had to make strenuous investigation. For Tom Sawyer and for Huckleberry Finn he needed no research; he had but to recapture the abundant memories of his own boyhood; he was supported and inspired by an intense intimacy with the characters he was creating and with the characteristic atmosphere with which he was unconsciously surrounding them. In a letter written in 1891 to an unknown correspondent he asserted, I confine myself to the life with which I am familiar. Of course, this was not strictly true, but it explains the unquestionable superiority of the stories which were the result of his confining himself to the life with which he was familiar, and these stories amply sustain his declaration in this same letter, As the most valuable capital or culture or education useable in the building of novels is personal experience, I ought to be well equipped for that trade. And he added that this culture was all of it real, none of it artificial, for I don’t know anything about books.

And once more, of course, this last assertion is not strictly true, because Mark Twain became in time a well-read man, although his reading was not widespread, being confined to the authors, Suetonius, for one, in whose writings he found himself taking a keen interest. He had read enough, and in the best writers, to enable him to acquire a style of singular simplicity and directness, a style as strong and as sinewy as that of Franklin or of Lincoln. He might not be bookish in his vocabulary, but he had an unerring instinct for the right word, for the necessary noun, and for the inevitable adjective. His own stylistic integrity gave him a sharp distaste for the writing of affluent improvisers like Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper, a distaste which more or less prevented his perceiving their larger merits.

His own mastery of the language was acquired only by stern labor, and there are passages in his earlier books which lack individuality and which recall journalistic humorists of the generation preceding his—John Phoenix, for one, and Artemus Ward for another. Yet even in The Innocents Abroad there are evidences of his ability to rise far above the humble level of these newspaper forerunners, and the few lines in which he describes the austere beauty of the Sphinx will withstand comparison with the lofty description of the equally austere beauty of the Jungfrau in the Tramp Abroad. He rose to these heights easily and naturally; his eloquence was direct and unaffected, simple and sincere, because it was, in fact, but the revelation of the deeper side of his nature, disclosed only infrequently until in his maturity he came to pen his own autobiography.

For autobiography he had a special gift because he was always interested in himself and because he was frank in his liking to talk about himself. Not counting the autobiography itself, of which only fragments have appeared and which has not yet been included in his complete works, four of his most popular books are avowedly autobiographic—The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, A Tramp Abroad, and Life on the Mississippi. These are the records, more or less embellished by humor, of his adventures and experiences on the Mississippi, in the West, and in Europe. They are the result of a sifting of his observations of his fellow-travelers through life and of his reflections upon them.

And it is not too much to say that his novels are ultimately valuable in proportion as they are autobiographic. Joan of Arc, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court, and The Mysterious Stranger have merits of their own, each its own kind and in its own degree; but these merits, indisputable as they are, are on a lower level than the merits of the three stories, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Pudd’nhead Wilson, in which he drew directly and liberally upon the abundant memories of his boyhood and early manhood in the Mississippi Valley.

III

Of these three longer and more significant fictions, Pudd’nhead Wilson is the shortest and the least significant, perhaps partly because he had drawn off the cream of his juvenile recollections into the two other and earlier tales. It may be, however, that this inferiority of the latest of the three stories of life in the land of his boyhood is due to its being less autobiographic—that is to say, more obviously invented in its incidents, some of which are a little tainted with artificiality, the result of his not being content to interpret imaginatively the remembered reality. Yet there are few scenes in fiction more poignant than that in which the ungrateful son sells his own mother down the river. Unequal as Pudd’nhead Wilson may be to Tom Sawyer and to Huckleberry Finn, it has the true Mark Twain quality, even if this is not always as richly evident as it might be.

Furthermore, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have this advantage over Pudd’nhead Wilson, that they are both boys’ books, written by a man who could recall at will what he had been when he was a boy. In fact, it would be easy to maintain that Mark Twain was always a boy, that he never grew up, that he retained to the end of his life the essential characteristics of a boy—the delight in adventure for its own sake, the longing for the romantic, the eager audacity, and the abiding desire to show off. It was because Mark Twain continued to be a boy, with a boy’s outlook on life, that he was enabled, when he had acquired the art of writing, to give us these two humorous epics of youth, which are as interesting to a man who is fortunate enough to be able to recall sympathetically his own boyhood as they are to an actual boy, still in his teens.

Tom Sawyer is the story of a lad who lives in a struggling, straggling town on the banks of the Mississippi; it sets forth his foolishness and his cleverness, his irresponsibility and his assurance, his energy and his ingenuity. It introduces us to a host of characters, all limned unforgettably with the utmost economy of stroke and with a humor as sympathetic as it is simple, as restrained as it is rich. It abounds in scenes of sheer fun, always securely founded in exact observation of human nature. It contains, moreover, at least one episode which may rank with the greatest moments in fiction—with Robinson Crusoe finding the footprint in the sand of the shore and with Henry Esmond breaking his sword before the unworthy prince. This episode is in the chapter which tells us how Tom and Becky were lost in the cave and how Tom saw a light in the distance, which proved to be a candle in the hand of Indian Joe, the only enemy Tom had in all the world. Although a sequel to a successful work of fiction is very rarely able to attain an equal merit, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a better book than The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, better both artistically and morally, and bigger in its theme. In the earlier book the author himself told us the sayings and the doings of a group of lads; and the main interest of the story lay in the ease and the certainty with which the spirit and the high spirits of youth were recaptured. In the later book Mark Twain lets Huck Finn speak for himself, and he makes us see not boys only, but men and women as they were mirrored in the eyes of the outcast vagabond. In Tom Sawyer the single scene is one little town and its immediate environs, whereas in Huckleberry Finn the scene is constantly shifting until we have set before us the crowded panorama of the Mississippi River, as this is picturesquely unrolled before the unreflecting gaze of the unheroic hero.

IV

We have in Huckleberry Finn a broadly brushed painting of a vanished civilization, the Southwest as it was before the Civil War. On his voyage down the river Huck meets many men and a few women, some of them afloat, but most of them ashore, and he describes them as they appear to him. With the perfection of artistic restraint Mark Twain eschews all reflection of his own, letting all comment flow from the mouth of Huck himself, a wily boy in his disenchantment as the son of the most disreputable man in his native town, wily in his own way and yet youthfully innocent. Especially noteworthy for vigorous simplicity of narrative, totally devoid of moralizing, are Huck’s successive accounts of the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud and of the futile attempt to lynch Colonel Sherburn.

The Grangerford-Shepherdson feud was a vendetta as intense and as deadly as any that ever took place in Corsica, and yet we are made to see and to understand that the parties to it were honest, brave, kindly, good Christian families, probably people of deep religious feeling. None the less did they carry their guns to church with them, and when the time came they did not hesitate to take part in a private battle which ended only in a general massacre. It is with an equally pitiless veracity that Huck narrates the circumstances which led the dignified Colonel Sherburn to kill Boggs, the drunken creature who persisted in insulting him, a murder which led to the gathering of a leaderless mob bent upon lynching the murderer and yet easily dispersed by the courage of Colonel Sherburn and by his impassioned contempt for their cowardice.

As Mark Twain was unequal, even in his best work, it must not be supposed that the whole book is sustained on the high level of these incidents; and it may be admitted at once that the characters of the duke and the dauphin, drawn from life as they are, now and again relax into caricature. It may be admitted, also, that there are passages where the interest falls off, those, for example, setting forth Tom Sawyer’s scheme to steal Jim out of prison, although he knew that the slave had been given his freedom. But there are very few of these lapses from the highest standard of literary art, and they are relatively unimportant.

When all is said the fact remains that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain’s masterpiece, the most amply characteristic of all his stories, the broadest in its background, the truest in its character delineation, the most interesting in its episodes. It is the book which discloses the fewest of his defects—his uncertainty of taste, his occasional inability to resist the twin temptations of caricature and artificiality; and it is the book which exhibits superbly and triumphantly the most of his finer qualities—his skill in narration, his humor rooted in knowledge of human nature, his interpreting imagination, his veracity in dealing with life, his artistic integrity, and his unrivaled capacity to be a boy again. Nor is this all that must be said: Huckleberry Finn is not only Mark Twain’s masterpiece; it is one of the masterpieces of American fiction, a worthy companion of the best that our novelists have been able to achieve, each in his own fashion. That is to say, it is destined to live by the side of the Last of the Mohicans and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Scarlet Letter and the Rise of Silas Lapham.

BRANDER MATTHEWS

1918.

Notice

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,

Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance.

Explanatory

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary Pike County dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a hap-hazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

THE AUTHOR.

Chapter I

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead people.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to any-body, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.

Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry; and Don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight; and pretty soon she would say, Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don’t you try to behave? Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn’t say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.

Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.

Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn’t no confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d killed a spider.

I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke; for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn’t know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boom—boom—boom—twelve licks; and all still again—stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees—something was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow! down there. That was good! Says I, me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.

Chapter II

We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow’s garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn’t scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson’s big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

Who dah?

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn’t a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch. Well, I’ve noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy—if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:

Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sumf’n. Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do: I’s gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin.

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn’t know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more’n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore—and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.

Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn’t want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say,

Reviews for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (with an Introduction by Brander Matthews)

[kellyholmes-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Yet another banned book that kicks ass.

[edwin6gleaves · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A nicely bound, nicely printed, edition of Huckleberry Finn, this time by an Indian publisher and printer. The validity and accuracy of this edition yet to be determined.

[ainjel-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is quite humourous and satirical, and for the most part, it's quite fun to read. I did zone out for a bit in the middle there, losing interest when it wasn't about Huck's tomfoolery, but I greatly enjoyed the parts with Tom. The relationship between Huck and Tom is quite interesting and captivating, and really elevates the story itself.

[nu5bibliophile · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Re-reading since high school. Good classic!

[karenduff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While I really enjoyed this book, the constant use of the word nigger made me really uncomfortable. I know that during the time that the book was both written and set it was in common usage and I also know that if the book had been edited to remove any offensive terms then I wouldn't have read it because then it wouldn't have been Twain's work. Other than that I found this to be a really well written and engrossing read, couldn't put it down. Confession time - I am 37 years old and this is the first Mark Twain book I have read but I am looking forward to reading more.

[jonfaith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

matters appear hysterical on goodreads these days. Ripples of concern often appear daunting to the literate, cushioned by their e-devices and their caffienated trips to dusty book stores; why, the first appearence of crossed words often sounds like the goddamn apocalypse. Well, it can anyway. I find people are taking all of this way too seriously.

I had a rough day at work. It is again hot as hell outside and I just wanted to come home and listen to chamber music and read Gaddis until my wife comes home. Seldom are matters that simple. It is within these instances of discord that I think about Pnin. I love him and the maestro's creation depicting such. I situate the novel along with Mary and The Gift in my personal sweet cell of Nabokov, insulated well away from Lolita and Ada, perhaps drawing strength from Vladimir's book on Gogol, though certainly not his letters with Bunny Wilson. It is rare that I can think about Pnin washing dishes and not tear up. I suppose I'll survive this day as well.

[egoose_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Emily GooseAmerican LiteratureMrs. J. Clark Evans27 August 2007Reaction to A Walk to Remember by Nicholas SparksNicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember is a heart wrenching story about a young, first love and heartbreak. While this may sound like a traditional love story, this novel was nothing of the sort. I laughed, cried, and took time to dwell on the storyline. At times I put the book down to think, ponder, and imagine “what if.” Sparks writes about two seventeen year olds, Landon Carter and Jamie Sullivan, who live in Beaufort, North Carolina and find themselves unexpectedly in love. Landon was a typical rule-breaking, willing-to-do-anything-for-fun teenager, while Jamie was anything but. She carried her bible wherever she went, wore a plaid skirt with a sweater and a smile everyday, spent time weekly at the local orphanage, and said “hello” to every person she passed by, “just because.” Through a school play and periodical conversations on her front porch, they slowly grew quite fond of each other. It wasn’t long until they spent all their time together and Landon was falling for the girl he had once spent time making fun of. Throughout the formation of their friendship, however, Jamie had been keeping something from him. She had been diagnosed with leukemia six months previous and the side effects were worsening as the days passed. With the secret out, the two faced monumental hurdles together and their lives were changed forever. While they knew their love was special, strong, and impossible to let go of, they were aware that their time together was quickly coming to an end. A surprising conclusion led the reader to believe that miracles can and do happen, one just needs to look deep for them. Sparks has a way of making every story he writes easy to connect to, even if the reader has never experienced what he’s writing about. His word choice is descriptive, picture-painting and mind boggling. The plot twisted and turned throughout the story, keeping the reader guessing to the very end. Jamie and Landon’s story is one that I will not soon forget. Their strength together in the situation they were in was truly admirable. I believe that young love is a rare and extraordinary occurrence. Sparks sent a message to the reader that if it happens, to hold it tight and value it because it may never happen again. I recommend Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember to all readers who are willing to let themselves cry and genuinely appreciate a one-of-a-kind love story.

[taciturning · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Truly deserves its status as an American classic.

[antao-3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(Original Review, 1981-03-18)I guess “Ulysses” pushes the envelope of “Literature was made for man, not man for literature” but I like to give the benefit of the doubt to books especially if not only do they have a sustained critical reputation, but if people whose opinions I respect think the book is great stuff. When I was venting some of my frustration about “Ulysses” and “Finnegans Wake” to a well-read musician friend, she just gently suggested that if I let myself listen to the music of the language it might change my perception. When it comes to ”Finnegans Wake” I couldn’t do it…I’m still deaf.I guess Huck is a little trying as a voice, especially in the beginning, but I think it is one of the greatest books ever written, or I ever read. Tom Sawyer is OK, but HF is brilliant. In the most direct way possible Huck learns about the absolute humanity of Jim but also Huck feels guilty because Jim is property and in the South, being property trumped being human. In its quiet, folksy way it presents us with something intensely evil face to face with something just as intensely familiar and homey. All those people, many of them, are such fine nice people so vividly portrayed as such, except that the vilest evil that they live with every day, and have created and sustain, is totally invisible to them. As a really human document, a damning one, it has never been done so well and so quietly. Freud drew attention to the uncanny in his short but influential essay, as having just that quality of being so homey and yet being alien, so human but so inhuman.Not totally sure about the ending though; it was contrived in a way, BUT I was very impressed by the late chapter scene where the doctor, clearly a good and fine man, will not go seek help for a sick child because he was afraid that Jim might run off. Again that MONSTRUOUS blindness vs the child. And the scene where the men, the good folks of the town, were talking about what to do with Jim, some wanting to lynch him, not for running away, but because of his ingratitude!!! And then deciding not to kill him because after all he is someone's property and they might be held liable for his dollars’ worth!!! Nevertheless Huck comes of age.I would agree more with the idea that all American fiction is a response to Huck Finn if it hadn't been Hemingway who said it, but I will not accept that anyone else could possibly admire the book more than I do. Still, the ending is the weakest part. I don't know who could have written a better ending but facts are facts and by the time we get to the last few chapters the really astonishing novelties have already been spent where they'd do the most good.

[barb_h_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Audiobook. The narration was good, but I didn't care all that much for the story. I preferred Tom Sawyer's story to Huck's.

[missbrandysue · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

#2 of the Rory Gilmore ChallengeSo I'm going to go ahead and give this 3 stars because by the last 10 chapters I was pretty ready to be finished with it. I found myself intrigued by the plot by the middle of the book but found it hard to read for long periods. By the time I read 2 chapters I was kind of ready to move on to something else or fell asleep causing my long period in reading.I didn't read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer first, although it was referenced pretty highly in the first 5 chapters or so. If my TBR stack and library stack weren't so tall I'd have considered it. However, when Tom Sawyer appears in the last chapters of the book I'm really grateful I didn't go back. Did anyone else think Tom Sawyer was the MOST ANNOYING character in this book? Being a kid of the 80s I remember the Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Brad Renfro and Elijah Wood renditions of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer that came out all within a few years of each other. So, I was interested in reading the first published stories to see what I remembered and what was actually in the book. I read the Penguins Classics version that had additional notes for background on Twain's writing. I quite liked the intro that talked about Twain's reading history that helped influence pieces of the story. The plot - I liked the plot, except the end with Tom Sawyer. I had no idea it was so gory at parts, but I guess I always read the editions for kids. The King and Duke were quick-paced which I appreciated once I got there. Some of the small river plots were interesting but seemed somewhat far fetched for a novel so acclaimed for giving insight in the Mississippi culture of the 1800s. I definitely want to go back and read Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" novel now while taking a month-long trip (you know, as soon as I save $8000 to do so). The characters - Jim was quite simple and I thought Mark Twain may be more interested in developing the ties of slavery through his character rather than the plot. Huck Finn's morale tests and self-talk were amusing, wish there had been a bit more. Maybe I'm a character-driven reader these days?All-in-all as a historical piece I enjoyed the context of the Mississippi River and the almost short story excerpts of river life. However, the novel dragged a bit for me to really enjoy it more and seemed to be a bit all over the place with Twain's style.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Huckleberry Finn is a young boy whose life hasn’t been easy, with no mother and an abusive drunkard for a father who only has time for Huck when he wants something. After Huck and Tom Sawyer found $6,000.00 in the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck is placed with a widow woman who cleans him up and sends him to school. It isn’t long before his father, with a desire to get his hands on Huck’s money, shows up. He kidnaps Huck and both mistreats him and holds him captive. Huck eventually breaks free by faking his own death. He comes across Jim, a runaway slave and together they journey down the Mississippi River on a raft and forge a lasting friendship. This was a re-read for me, but I do believe that I both enjoyed the story and got more out of it on this second go. Not only does this character have one of the best names in literature, Huckleberry is also a great character to read about. He is a realist and adapts readily to most situations but he seems to be most comfortable when actually on the river. There is a simple decency to the boy, he tries to do the right thing. This trip on the river teaches him many life lessons and the reader is able to see him grow and develop into a conscientious and caring person.I struggled a little at the beginning of the book with the various dialects, but once I picked up the rhythm this was a very fun story. Mark Twain uses straightforward language, humor and a simple story line to show both the hypocrisy of slavery and the ridiculousness of many of society’s rules.

[vclarke-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic read for many high school students. Huck is one of literature's great characters. He is street smart and dishonest, but loyal (to an extent). His relationship with Jim has stood the test of time. Personally, I think it has one of literature's best ending to any book I have ever read. I would recommend this for upper level high school readers. The language is difficult because of the southern accent. I recommend reading many sections aloud or reading along with an audio version to begin with.

[jennysbookbag.com · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Definitely a classic to read!

[terribooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Better than I expected.

[timbears · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful! A ripping yarn!

[carmenohio · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Simply wonderful.

[finalcut_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It was easy to imagine myself as Huck Finn as a kid even though my life bared little obvious resemblance to his. However, my childhood was one of freedom and adventure and I felt like I had found a literary soul brother in Huck as I read about his adventures. While mine weren't on the scale of his many were far removed.

[frozenplums · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was pleasantly surprised with this book. It was on a syllabus for one of my college classes and I really debated just giving Sparknotes a glance, but I'm glad I actually put the effort in and read it. The most difficult part of the story is the regional dialect. I had to read it out loud sometimes to figure out what was being said, but it you can get past that, it's a pretty silly, entertaining story. There of course deep morals and lessons to be learned, but it's the cast of characters that really made this book enjoyable for me. They're just ridiculous, and I found nearly all of them reminiscent of some old classic stories. See if you can pick them out!

[crfonten · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an American classic that all students should read. It is about a boy Huck and his journeys on the Mississippi River. The book is full of exciting adventures and thrilling stories.

[mykl8s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

-important for its time-like much of Twain, wordy and tedious, the work of an author paid by the word

[lovejoy_rat · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Took me a while to chew through this one... its longer than I remembered from high school! I'm glad I read it again, however, and am looking forward to the next title in my classics challenge!

[spounds_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure if it was the narration or the subject matter or a dated book, but eh..... Won't make my favorite list.That being said, the ending did surprise me and I liked that part.

[john257hopper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This started well and the first few chapters read like a direct continuation of Tom Sawyer, which I really enjoyed. But I did not find the subsequent adventures of Huck Finn engrossing beyond a few humorous touches; the one positive was the friendship between Huck and the runaway slave Jim, but after they fell in with a pair of eccentrics who thought they were royalty/nobility, my interest waned and I gave up just over half way through. 3/5

[jawalter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

eBook

What is there to say? It's my favorite novel. Funny and profound and moving; It's almost hard to read because it spins my thoughts and imagination in all different directions on almost every page.

I suppose you could take something different from it every time you pick it up, but for me, it's about recognizing that everyone has the power to shape their beliefs to meet the world they encounter. As Huck travels down the river, he keeps adopting and discarding the belief systems he encounters until he finally realizes that it's up to him to decide what's right and what's wrong. That he's unable to stick to his guns is what makes this both a tragic work and a profoundly real one.

Huck, the boy, is the man I aspire to be. Smart, despite not being educated; wise, yet not without flaws. It's a good day when I recognize his cadences in my thoughts.

[6boysandme · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Summary: Good old Huck Finn sets out on an adventure and helps runaway slave Jim along the way. We see him battle with his conscience in trying to figure out right and wrong in a world where men are valued based on the color of their skin. It's Mark Twain for heaven sake, so of course it's brilliant.Quote: "Well I tried the best I could to kinder soften if up somehow for myself, by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, "There was the Sunday school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you, there..."

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I picked up this book because there has been so much in the press recently about removing Huckleberry Finn from many high school reading lists. No better press for a book than banning it! The story is a classic with a fun plot and two wonderful characters, Huck Finn and Jim, a runaway slave. It is such a good picture of life in small Southern towns along the Mississippi. What can be difficult for many students is the strong Southern dialect in the book which is told as a journal by Huck Finn. Dick Hill's accent and intonation is perfect for this book. He won an Audie award for this narration and he absolutely deserves it.

[catek-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this book as a teenager, and thought of it as a light, humorous book. It's completely different when read from an adult perspective - much darker.

[garryrogers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this and Tom Sawyer when I was 10 or 11. I liked Tom better, but I read both books several times.

[kirmuriel-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Huck is a very good narrator and has all the common sense Tom lacks. Even though I wanted to hate Tom for making Jim suffer so many odd thing, I couldn't help but to laugh from all his occurrences. Still I like Huck better.