Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 125th Anniversary Edition: The only authoritative text based on the complete, original manuscript / Edition 1 available in Paperback
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 125th Anniversary Edition: The only authoritative text based on the complete, original manuscript / Edition 1
- ISBN-10:
- 0520266102
- ISBN-13:
- 2900520266109
- Pub. Date:
- 08/10/2010
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 125th Anniversary Edition: The only authoritative text based on the complete, original manuscript / Edition 1
Buy New
$24.99Buy Used
$18.13-
$18.13
$24.99Save 27% Current price is $18.13, Original price is $24.99. You Save 27%.-
SHIP THIS ITEM
Temporarily Out of Stock Online
Please check back later for updated availability.
-
Overview
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or Mark Twain, as he was better known was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. His father ran a dry goods and grocery store, practiced law and involved himself in local politics after the family's move to Hannibal, Missouri, when Sam was four years old.
Hannibal seems to have been a good place for a boy to grow up. Sam was entranced by the Mississippi River and enjoyed both the barges and the people who traveled on them. When Sam was just eleven his father died and Sam went to work for his brother at the Hannibal Journal first as a printer's apprentice and later a compositor. While still in his teens Sam went on the road as an itinerant printer. In 1857 he conceived a plan to seek his fortune in South America but on the way he met a steamboat captain, Horace Bixby who took him on as a cub riverboat pilot and taught him until he acquired his own license.
This enjoyable style of life, which Twain always spoke of later with special warmth was ended by the Civil War. Twain went west with his brother Orion to prospect in Nevada but in 1862 joined the staff of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, a paper to which he had already begun submitting his work. Later Twain went to California and submitted "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" to the New York Saturday Press.
By 1871 Twain had published Innocents Abroad and had married Olivia Langdon, the sister of a friend from a socially prominent New York City family. He and his wife moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where they made their family home for thenext 20 years.
Books that he wrote in Hartford confirmed his popular reputation but despite their success Twain found himself in financial difficulty primarily because of his investments in the Paige typesetting business as well as his own publishing company. Eventually Twain was forced to declare bankruptcy.
Twain's last major books were successful commercially but they also reflect his increasing pessimism. His satire becomes at times more biting and mean-spirited than it is humorous. Despite the downturn in Twain's outlook in later life and despite the unevenness of much of his work, he remains one of the major writers of the American nineteenth century, and one who has been enormously influential on subsequent writers.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 2900520266109 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of California Press |
| Publication date: | 08/10/2010 |
| Series: | Mark Twain Library |
| Edition description: | First Edition, 125th Anniversary Edition |
| Pages: | 616 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.46(w) x 11.28(h) x 1.52(d) |
About the Author
Date of Birth:
November 30, 1835Date of Death:
April 21, 1910Place of Birth:
Florida, MissouriPlace of Death:
Redding, ConnecticutRead an Excerpt
I Discover Moses and the Bulrushers
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 felt 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 anybody, 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 downhearted 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.
Table of Contents
ILLUSTRATIONS FOREWORD MARK TWAIN ON TOUR ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN Notice Explanatory 1. Civilizing Huck.-Miss Watson.-Tom Sawyer Waits 2. The Boys Escape Jim.- Tom Sawyer's Gang.-Deep-laid Plans 3. A Good Going-over.-Grace Triumphant.-"One of Tom Sawyer's Lies" 4. Huck and the Judge.-Superstition 5. Huck's Father.-The Fond Parent.-Reform 6. He Went for Judge Thatcher.-Huck Decides to Leave.-Political Economy.-Thrashing Around 7. Laying for Him.-Locked in the Cabin.-Sinking the Body.-Resting 8. Sleeping in the Woods.-Raising the Dead.-Exploring the Island.-Finding J im.-J im's Escape.-Signs.-"Balum" 9. The Cave.-The Floating House 10. The Find.-Old Hank Bunker.-In Disguise 11. Huck and the Woman.-The Search.-Prevarication.-Going to Goshen 12. Slow Navigation.-Borrowing Things.-Boarding the Wreck.- The Plotters.-Hunting for the Boat 13. Escaping from the Wreck.-The Watchman.-Sinking 14. A General Good Time.- The Harem.-French 15. Huck Loses the Raft.-ln the Fog.-Huck Finds the Raft.-Trash 16. "Give Us a Rest."-The Corpse-Maker Crows.-"The Child of Calamity."-They Both Weaken.-Little Davy Steps ln.-After the Battle.-Ed's Adventures.-Something Queer.-A Haunted BarreL-It Brings a Storm.- The Barrel Pursues.-Killed by Lightning.-Allbright Atones.-Ed Gets Mad.-Snake or Boy?-"Snake Him Out."-Some Lively Lying.-Off and Overboard.-Expectations.-A White Lie.-Floating Currency.-Running by Cairo.-Swimming Ashore 17. An Evening Call.-The Farm in Arkansaw.-lnterior Decorations.-Stephen Dowling Bots.-Poetical Effusions 18. Col. Grangerford.-Aristocracy.-Feuds.-The Testament.- Recovering the Raft.-The Wood-pile.-Pork and Cabbage 19. Tying Up Daytimes.-An Astronomical Theory.-Running a Temperance Revival.-The Duke of Bridgewater.-The Troubles of Royalty 20. Huck Explains.-Laying Out a Campaign.-Working the Camp-meeting.-A Pirate at the Camp-meeting.-The Duke as a Printer 21. Sword Exercise.-Hamlet's Soliloquy.-They Loafed Around Town.-A Lazy Town.-Old Boggs.-Dead 22. Sherbum.-Attending the Circus.-lntoxication in the Ring.-The Thrilling Tragedy 23. "Sold! "-Royal Comparisons.-)im Gets Homesick 24. Jim in Royal Robes.-They Take a Passenger.-Getting lnformation.-Family Grief 25. "Is It Them?"-Singing the "Doxolojer."-Awful Square.-Funeral Orgies.-A Bad Investment 26. A Pious King.-The King's Clergy.-She Asked His Pardon.- Hiding in the Room.-Huck Takes the Money 27. The FuneraL-Satisfying Curiosity.-Suspicious of Huck.-Quick Sales and Small Profits 28. The Trip to England.-"The Brute!"-Mary Jane Decides to Leave.-Huck Parting with Mary Jane.-Mumps.-The Opposition Line 29. Contested Relationship.-The King Explains the Loss.A Question of Handwriting.-Digging up the Corpse.-Huck Escapes 30. The King Went for Him.-A Royal Row.-Powerful Mellow 31. Ominous Plans.-News of J im.-Old Recollections.-A Sheep Story.-Valuable Information 32. Still and Sunday-like.-Mistaken ldentity.-Up a Stump.-ln a Dilemma 33. A Nigger Stealer.-Southem Hospitality.-A Pretty Long Blessing.-Tar and Feathers 34. The Hut by the Ash-hopper.-Outrageous.-Climbing the Lightning Rod.-Troubled with Witches 35. Escaping Properly.-Dark Schemes.-Discrimination in Stealing.-A Deep Hole 36. The Lightning Rod.-His Level Best.-A Bequest to Posterity.- A High Figure 37. The Lost Shirt.-Mooning Around.-Sailing Orders.- The Witch Pie 38. The Coat of Arms.-A Skilled Superintendent.-Unpleasant Glory.-A Tearful Subject 39. Rats.-Lively Bed-fellows.-The Straw Dummy 40. Fishing.-The Vigilance Committee.-A Lively Run.-Jim Advises a Doctor 41. The Doctor.-Uncle Silas.-Sister Hotchkiss.-Aunt Sally in Trouble 42. Tom Sawyer Wounded.-The Doctor's Story.-Tom Confesses.-Aunt Polly Arrives.-"Hand Out Them Letters" Chapter the Last: Out of Bondage.-Paying the Captive.- Yours Truly Huck Finn MAPS EXPLANATORY NOTES GLOSSARY THREE PASSAGES FROM THE MANUSCRIPT MANUSCRIPT FACSIMILES REFERENCES NOTE ON THE TEXTWhat People are Saying About This
All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.
"Although he does an expert job with the entire cast, [narrator William] Dufris's delivery of Jim's dialogue is his crowning achievement. . . . Jim's mind and heart come shining through." —-Publishers Weekly Audio Review
...We come to see Huck... as one of the permanent symbolic figures of fiction; not unworthy to tak e a place with Ulysses, Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Hamlet, and other great discoveries that man has made about himself.
One can read it at ten and then annually ever after, and each year find that it is as fresh as the year before...
Reading Group Guide
1. Critics have long disagreed about exactly what role Jim plays in Huckleberry Finn. Some have claimed, for example, that his purpose is solely to provide Huck with the opportunity for moral growth, while others have argued that he is a surrogate father figure to Huck. What do you think is Jim's role in the novel?
2. The ending of Huckleberry Finn has been the source of endless critical controveryse. Though no less than T. S. Eliot and Lionel Trilling defended the ending on the grounds that it is structurally coherent ("It is right, " Eliot stated, "that the mood of the book should bring us back to the beginning"), many critics feel that the return of Tom Sawyer and his elaborate scheme for Jim's escape reduces what had been a serious quest for freedom to a silly farce. Bernard de Voto wrote, "In the whole reach of the English novel there is no more aburpt or more abrupt or chilling descent." How does the ending strike you?
3. The Mississippi can be considered a character in its own right in Huckleberry Finn. Discuss the role of the river in the novel.
4. How do humor and satire function in the book?
5. Critic William Manierre argued in a 1964-65 essay that "Huck's 'moral growth' has... been vastly overestimated, " noting for example, that when his conscience begins to give him trouble, he decides he will "do whichever came handiest at the time, " and that while Huck can be seen to achieve a kind of moral grandeur when he tears up the note he's written to Miss Watson, that achievement is underminded by his easy acceptance of Tom Sawyer's scheme in the last ten chapters. Do you agree ordisagree?
6. In "The Greatness of Huckleberry Finn, " Lionel Trilling stated that the style of the book is "not less than definitive in American literature, " and Louis Budd has noted that "today it is standard academic wisdom that Twain's precedent-setting achievement is Huck's language." Discuss the effect of Twain's use of colloquial speech and dialect in the novel.
Foreword
1. Critics have long disagreed about exactly what role Jim plays in Huckleberry Finn. Some have claimed, for example, that his purpose is solely to provide Huck with the opportunity for moral growth, while others have argued that he is a surrogate father figure to Huck. What do you think is Jim's role in the novel?
2. The ending of Huckleberry Finn has been the source of endless critical controveryse. Though no less than T.S. Eliot and Lionel Trilling defended the ending on the grounds that it is structurally coherent ("It is right," Eliot stated, "that the mood of the book should bring us back to the beginning"), many critics feel that the return of Tom Sawyer and his elaborate scheme for Jim's escape reduces what had been a serious quest for freedom to a silly farce. Bernard de Voto wrote, "In the whole reach of the English novel there is no more aburpt or more abrupt or chilling descent." How does the ending strike you?
3. The Mississippi can be considered a character in its own right in Huckleberry Finn. Discuss the role of the river in the novel.
4. How do humor and satire function in the book?
5. Critic William Manierre argued in a 1964-65 essay that "Huck's 'moral growth' has...been vastly overestimated," noting for example, that when his conscience begins to give him trouble, he decides he will "do whichever came handiest at the time," and that while Huck can be seen to achieve a kind of moral grandeur when he tears up the note he's written to Miss Watson, that achievement is underminded by his easy acceptance of Tom Sawyer's scheme in the last ten chapters. Do you agree ordisagree?
6. In "The Greatness of Huckleberry Finn," Lionel Trilling stated that the style of the book is "not less than definitive in American literature," and Louis Budd has noted that "today it is standard academic wisdom that Twain's precedent-setting achievement is Huck's language." Discuss the effect of Twain's use of colloquial speech and dialect in the novel.