Huckle berry finn

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Considered as the Great American Novel, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyerand narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective).

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, particularlyracism.

The work has been popular with readers since its publication and is taken as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent useof the racial slur "nigger".[2][3]

Contents [hide]
1 Publication history
2 Plot summary
2.1 Life in St. Petersburg
2.2 The Floating House & Huck as a Girl
2.3 The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons
2.4 The Duke and the King
2.5 Jim's escape
2.6 Conclusion
3 Major themes
4 Reception
5 Adaptations
5.1 Film
5.2 Stage
5.3 Literature
5.4 Music
6 References
7 Externallinks


[edit] Publication history

Mark TwainTwain initially conceived of the work as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that would follow Huck Finn through adulthood. Beginning with a few pages he had removed from the earlier novel, Twain began work on a manuscript he originally titled Huckleberry Finn's Autobiography. Twain worked on the manuscript off and on for the next severalyears, ultimately abandoning his original plan of following Huck's development into adulthood. He appeared to have lost interest in the manuscript while it was in progress, and set it aside for several years. After making a trip down the Mississippi, Twain returned to his work on the novel. Upon completion, the novel's title closely paralleled its predecessor's: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(Tom Sawyer's Comrade).[4]

Unlike The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn does not have the definite article "the" as a part of its proper title. Essayist and critic Spencer Neve states that this absence represents the "never fulfilled anticipations" of Huck's adventures—while Tom's adventures were completed (at least at the time) by the end of his novel, Huck'snarrative ends with his stated intention to head West.[5]

Mark Twain composed the story in pen on notepaper between 1876 and 1883. Paul Needham, who supervised the authentication of the manuscript for Sotheby's books and manuscripts department in New York in 1991, stated, "What you see is [Clemens'] attempt to move away from pure literary writing to dialect writing". For example, Twain revised theopening line of Huck Finn three times. He initially wrote, "You will not know about me," which he changed to, "You do not know about me," before settling on the final version, "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."[6] The revisions also show how Twain reworked his material to strengthen the characters of Huckand Jim, as well as his sensitivity to the then-current debate over literacy and voting.[7]

A later version was the first typewritten manuscript delivered to a printer.[7]

Huck Finn was eventually published on December 10, 1884, in Canada and England, and on February 18, 1885, in the United States. The American publication was delayed because someone defaced an illustration on one of the...