Everyone should read or re-read this classic. Most of us read it in school, probabaly not in its entirety. Schools struggled then and now with the use of the N word, although teenage boys in the 1830's clearly would never have heard a synonym.

These adventures are a classic. The royals were a hoot, how many failed fraudulent enterprises could they invent before the inevitable tar and feathering. Huck and Jim are on the run from an abusive father and the law, respectively, and Twain shows all people have a great deal in common, in spite of theories prevalent in the antebellum era.

I'm not sure why Tom Sawyer needs to show up to conclude this thing. The ending could work without him, maybe Twain not sure that Finn could carry the book or film alone.

This Norton Critical Edition is truly the best version of Huck Finn one could find, with the original Kempel drawings, footnotes that fully explain textual issues without being intrusive, and well-chosen criticism. It is invaluable to me as a graduate student, and would be just as useful to the casual but attentive reader.

Huckleberry Finn is a classic. Simple as that. It provides a look into what life was probably like for a 19th century boy. It was different than the life of children today, because today life centers around education. Back then, it was a regular thing to play hooky, even though they got in trouble for it when they were caught. And when they were punished, usually it was with a beating instead of `You're Grounded!'.

The book shows us how badly slaves were treated. They weren't even considered humans! It was like they didn't have feelings, and didn't see things the same way white people did. They way the slaves actually did think was odd. It was sad to see that they could slap a slave for no reason, and the slave would accept it either because they were used to it or they thought that whites were better than them.

Huck Finn is rather unrealistic in the aspect of adventure. I'm guessing most boys back then didn't run off with an escaped slave to Cairo. The way that Mark Twain wrote the book was different than other first/second person books I've seen. The dialogue was very much like the 19th century southern Mississippi talk. Sometimes it got hard to decipher what a paragraph in slave-speak meant because it was so obscure.

All in all, Mark Twain's writing style is different than the traditional Southern book, but that doesn't detract at all from the story. I liked it!

This book is required reading for my 16 yr old son....the
book arrived quickly & in great shape! Saved me driving all
over town to compete w/ other parents also looking!! Thanks!

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a timeless classic that lives up to its prestigious name. It takes place in an array of locations along the Mississippi river around the time of 1835-45. The story is about Tom, a free-spirited boy, and his numerous adventures with a run-away slave named Jim.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proceeds Mark Twain's original novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but within the first page Huck acknowledges this and says reading the first book isn't that important. However, I personally recommend reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer before this book. While it is not essential, it adds a lot to the book and gives an initial understanding Huck's character.

The book starts right where The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ended: Huck is struggling to fit into his new found "civilized" life with the Widow Douglas. Huck is uncomfortably forced to learn to be proper while his fortune is held for him.

It wasn't long till Huck's Pap, the village drunk, came to kidnap Huck for his fortune. After living with his abusive father for a while, Huck decides to escape. One night, Huck feigns a robbery on his Pap's cabin and then feigns his own death. Huck escapes to a nearby island and decides to live there. Soon word spreads through town about Huck's death and the town suspects Huck's father, but then suspicions transfer to a runaway slave named Jim who was living on the same island.

Jim and Huck set off on a raft before people could find them. They embark on a series of adventures, including boarding the ships of robbers, murder mysteries, gunfights, family feuds, great storms, mobs, con artists, and other extravaganzas. During their voyages they also come to deal with a series of topics and realizations, such as the irony and hypocrisy of "civilized" and adult culture, slavery, racism, morality, human nature, and superstition.

This was a required reading for my son's class at school. Although he enjoyed the story line, the use of the local slang (written out phonetically ) was difficult for him to read and distracting to the story, he felt.

The version with a black & white photo of a boy on the cover (ISBN 1438245416) has the wrong description from Amazon--it doesn't have facsimile pages of the original manuscript. But it's a beautifully designed edition at a very low price for the large size (6"x9"--unlike the small mass market paperbacks). It's also printed on high-quality paper--not newsprint like the other versions. A great bargain at this low price.

I have heard about many of the essays included in this text and was excited to find that I could get them all in one book. I love the footnotes for additional information and the fact that the essays include both sides to teaching this book. I highly recommend for anyone who needs to know more about this classic text.

You'll notice pretty quickly when you pick this up that Huck doesn't spell too good and his grammar isn't so hot either. But if you look a little more closely, you find that he sure knows how to use the semi-colon, and his sentence structure is picture perfect. Mr. Twain may have decided that he was going to have some fun with his charming narrator, but he sure wasn't going to sacrifice good writing to do so.

The novel, as everyone knows, is a masterpiece, and works splendidly on every level. Plot, character development, theme; everything is here. Anybody reading this review has probably read the book several times and moreover has probably read about it a dozen more so it's pretty certain that my little review is not going to add much. I would, however, like to comment on something which struck me while reading it most recently, which is how richly it evokes middle America of the mid-nineteenth century. In other words, as well as being literature of the first rank, Huckleberry Finn also functions as a thorough and fascinating historical document of a time and place that every year sinks deeper and deeper into our collective memory.

Here he is describing Uncle Silas' place in Arkansas upon seeing it for the first time. "It was one of these one-horse cotton plantations and they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with . . . some sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log house for the white folks--hewed logs with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud stripes been white-washed some time or another; round log-kitchen, with a big, broad open but roofed passage joining it to the house . . . hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about . . . outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cottonfields begins, and after the fields the woods."

The first thing that strikes you about this is how . . . impoverished this all is, especially compared to how we live today. And this is a cotton-field owner with a number of slaves! But this was the south: rural, poor, hot, languid. Oh, yes, we are all familiar with the palatial southern mansion from novels like Gone With the Wind; I suspect that most of the South in the 1840s was closer to Huck's description than to Margaret Mitchell's.

Here's Huck's description of the town in which the King and Duke put on their first show: "The stores and houses was most all old, shackly, dried-up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they was set up three or four feet above ground on stilts, so as to be out of reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses had little gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in them but jimpson-weeds, and sunflowers, and ash-piles, and old curled up boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and played-out tinware . . . There was generly hogs in the garden, and people driving them out." Charming, eh? Of course, we in our modern twenty-first century aren't immune to such slovenliness. Sometimes, historical descriptions remind us that things don't change much.

Along with his brilliant observations of humanity and the human habitat the novel also contains breathtaking descriptions of nature, especially the Mississippi River. There's heavy timber on the Missouri side, mountains on the Illinois side, the lights of St. Louis: "We run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always in the dead water under a towhead . . . Next we slid into the water and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we sat down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee-deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywhere--perfectly still--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a cluttering, maybe. The first thing you see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line--and that was the woods on t'other side." How wonderfully evocative this is; how it makes one ache to experience such things!

Again, the novel is so much more than this. I'm not going to bother with the theme and the plot and the characters--what else is there to say?--but I can not finish this without giving an example or two of the wonderful humor contained in here. Here's the charming Huck after sneaking into the circus under the tent: "I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them." And when the King and the Duke run on hard times: "First they done a lecture on temperance, but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then, in another village, they started a dancing-school; but they didn't know no more than how to dance than a kangaroo does, so the first prance they made the general public pranced in and pranced them out of town . . . "

Oh, how rich this is. Rich and funny and lovely and hilarious. Read it for the pure entertainment contained in here, if nothing else.

I was introduced to this book back in high-school (in Australia), where my English Literature teach (who was an American) used this as one of our set texts. Despite this, I really enjoyed it, and now, near 20 years later, I picked it up in some second hand book shop for $1.50 and got engrossed in it all over again.

Mark Twain (not his real name) sailed the Mississippi river as a riverboat pilot early in his career, and the truth of his depiction of people and way of life in this novel shines through, despite the fanciful nature of the adventure. I couldn't help but get caught up in the crazy tale of Huck Finn, hopeless trouble-magnet that he is, as he struggles to get free of his troubles with the less-than-helpful assistance of a large cast of characters.

The language is a joy to read. The characters are fun to follow. And although the plot isn't the most complex, the characters themselves do a fabulous job of making the simple into convoluted mayhem. Several times I had to laugh out loud at the absurdity.

Even though I picked this book up cheap, it's well worth hanging onto. I can easily see myself re-reading this again - hopefully before another 20 years pass!

Wonderful book. Everybody should read it. Mark Twain is a genius. I don't care at what age you read this book whether a child or studying it in college you should read it. Read it for the story line, the literary technique and the deeper meaning.

"You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far." Uncle Remus

Huck and Jim take to the river to escape their troubles, but trouble dogs them every foot of the way. In fact, both Jim & Huck were within days of liberation when they eloped. They literally escaped from freedom.

The slavery and such are interesting sideshows, but Twain makes it pretty clear Jim wasnt mistreated, and freedom was always across the river, north & east, if Jim wanted physical freedom. Freedom was NOT down the river in the heart of the Deep South. All of this is metaphor for running away from your troubles.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an excellent, easy read that shows the adventures of a young southern boy running away from home and learning a little about himself in the meantime. Huck, who is adopted by two widows who try to "civilize" him, does not like it and runs away with Jim, Miss Watson's slave. Miss Watson is one of the widows who adopts Huck. They both escape and travel up the Mississippi river to the "free state". They both encounter many adventures along the way and Huck reveals to himself more and more along the way that Jim is "white" on the inside.

I really enjoyed this book because it shows Huck, who is being forced to be civilized by society, rebels because he finds that society has some moral imperfections that are being forced upon him. Jim becomes a father figure to Huck throughout the adventures and is not a servant, which is what society has taught Huck. For example when Jim doesn't let Huck see the dead man's face in the house floating down the river, it shows us that Jim really cares for Huck and takes responsibility for his protection. In turn to Jim's father-like figure to Huck, Huck takes responsibility to make sure Jim becomes a free man because Huck knows how good of a person Jim really is.

This book is a must read for anybody and can teach anyone a little bit about learning who a person really is and not to listen to what society has prejudged someone to be. I really enjoyed the gripping adventures that Huck goes through and the revelations he has about the prejudiced ways of society.

Preceding The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which ends after both Tom and Huck receive a large sum of money after finding a gold stash hidden by robbers. Both take place in the small town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, sometime before the start of the civil war. This helps to set up one of the main conflicts of the book, the issue of slavery. The story is told in the eyes of Huck Finn, who's skeptical view of the world allows him to think for himself what is right and wrong based on his sense of morals rather than jumping on the band wagon and coming out upright disliking slaves and regarding them as property, as much of what the south did during those times.

After being kidnapped by his biological father, he runs away and hides out on Jackson's Island and meets Jim, a run away slave. Although he has initial doubts on helping a runaway slave, he acts on what he believes to be right and team up. Throughout the story, Huck is tempted many times to turn Jim in for reward, and Twain incorporates these ideas through the characters surrounding Huck, like the con artists he is forced to join together with one time. They eventually sell Jim to Tom's aunt and uncle, and through a misunderstanding they think Huck is Tom and Tom is Sid, Tom's younger brother. Although Huck is initially surprised by the fact that Tom is willing to help Huck rescue Jim, because unlike Huck who was a social misfit, Tom was the product of middle-class society, strictly enforcing to the established rules by society. He acts as the foil for Huck through his strict adherence to rules despite moral issues while Huck acts solely through his own independent way of thinking. When Jim is "free" Huck learns that Jim had been free all along in the will left by the former slave's master. He realizes that was the reason why Tom was willing to help him. From the first book, the reader generally regards Tom as the good guy of the story, but it seems that in this novel, our view of Tom changes. He is willing to cause harm and risk lives for his own selfish motives.

When all is well and over, Huck begins to see the world more clearly for himself, saying that he does not want to be civilized because it would mean losing his sense of logic and acting on cold and strict rules. He decides to go west, toward Indian territories unbound by these rules where he can decide for what is right and wrong.

Twain's story is seemingly focused on Huck's "coming of age" with his discovery of the hypocrisy of the otherwise barbaric society. Where they cold-heartedly abide by rules and treat black people, who are also human as pieces of property to be bought and sold at their master's every whim.

I would advise anyone to read this book because it has such a strong message and it reads well due to all the action in the story. In addition, Twain's use of foils allow the reader to see both sides of the story, albeit a little biased because it was told from Huck's point of view. All in all, it makes for one great book to read!

I was surprised, when reading Huck Finn somewhat reluctantly on behalf of a Ladies' Literary Club, to find it highly amusing and relevant adult fare. Dialects are entertaining; Mark Twain's ironical observations about human nature still hit the mark today. Short chapters let you read the book during brief moments of respite from daily demands.

This is a pleasure to read. I have listened to it unabridged on tape 3 times and hope to listen to it more. Full of humor and sadness, it is not a book for children as is Tom Sawyer. Huck is an abused youth who narrates an odyssey that he, the runaway son, and Jim, the runaway slave, have on the river. It is unfortunate that films cannot capture the Huck's narrative.

This is a pleasure to read. I have listened to it unabridged on tape 3 times and hope to listen to it more. Full of humor and sadness, it is not a book for children as is Tom Sawyer. Huck is an abused youth who narrates an odyssey that he, the runaway son, and Jim, the runaway slave, have on the river. It is unfortunate that films cannot capture the Huck's narrative.

The temptation to teach Huck to high school students must be taken seriously. No matter the racial makeup of the class, the "N" word has to be defused before reading begins. We can explain and discuss and meltdown some of the ascerbity of the word, but unless the issue is fully resolved, the 200-plus appearances of such a slander will eventually work us back to tender. Background reading on Twain is a must. His short story, "Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy," about a boy returning from Sunday School who stops to stone a Chinaman (in San Francisco) makes a pointed comment about the "teaching" of prejudice. This story makes good pre-reading since a reference with a similar point is made in "Huck Finn." When a river boat has an accident, a riverside discussion goes: "Was anybody hurt?" "Nope. Killed a N- though." This bit of dialog slipped in and overheard is painfully offensive and yet such a perfect contrast to Huck's feelings and the "teaching" he has received, both from the Widow Douglas and from life itself. Jim, of course, is the subject of Huck's racial feelings. Throughout the story, Jim is a father, brother and friend to Huck, but never a servant. He is everything, a good man tormented with love for his lost family and Huck, yet in his world, he is literally bound (by chains and threats) and so cannot come close to the dignity of African Americans of today. Huck and Jim's world requires that we board a mental time-machine and accept both the life on the raft and the values on shore as they were then, not now. Teach the book with joy after preparing with compassion.

The temptation to teach Huck to high school students must be taken seriously. No matter the racial makeup of the class, the "N" word has to be defused before reading begins. We can explain and discuss and meltdown some of the ascerbity of the word, but unless the issue is fully resolved, the 200-plus appearances of such a slander will eventually work us back to tender. Background reading on Twain is a must. His "Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy" about a boy returning from Sunday School who stops to stone a Chinaman (in San Francisco) makes a pointed comment about the "teaching" of prejudice. A reference with a similar point is made in "Huck Finn." When a river boat has an accident, a riverside discussion goes: "Was anybody hurt?" "No. Killed a N- though." This bit of dialog slipped in and overheard is painfully offensive and yet such a perfect contrast to Huck's feelings and the "teaching" he has received, both from the Widow Douglas and from life itself. Jim, of course, is the subject of Huck's racial feelings. Throughout the story, Jim is a father, brother and friend to Huck, but never a servant. He is everything and yet never attractive enough nor intelligent enough to make us envy him. Jim is a good man tormented with love for his family and Huck, yet in his world, he is literally bound (by chains and threats) and so cannot come close to the African Americans of today. Huck and Jim's world requires that we board a mental time-machine and accept both the life on the raft and the values on shore as they were then, not now. Teach the book with joy after preparing with compassion.

In Twain's most prized novel, he reveals the problems in a judgmental, racist society and shows the need for reform. He argues for an end to such acts throughout the novel with Huck's union with the runaway slave and his ultimate decision to leave such a tainted world for more free ground.


Throughout Huck's travels, he struggles with the decision of whether or not he should stay loyal to his most precious and dedicated friend or turn him in just because he is a runaway slave, revealing the problems with judging people based on their skin color alone. In the beginning of the book, before Huck runs away to be alone, he would talk to Jim, Miss Watson's slave and property, on occasion, playing tricks on him with the help of his friends. But once he is able to escape society and discover the runaway Jim along his path, he decides to protect him and they band together in their journey. Although Huck repeatedly refers to him as "my Jim," he sees him as more than property but more in the sense of him being his friend. It is only when Huck is able to abandon all the "ideals" that society had taught him that he accepts Jim as his friend, not at all associated with any means of property. He decides this one night, even willing to go to "hell" for his actions, showing how he achieves Twain's goal of ending the extensive judgment in society based on a man's outward appearances.


As Huck learns more related lessons, he notices many problems that society has and decides that he does not want any part in such actions, abandoning those who do not share his views and becoming the full embodiment of Twain's wishes. Once Huck has decided that he will not dispose of Jim and return him to the hands of his owner he decides that he must break Jim out of "jail." He finds himself once more reunited with Tom and shares his goals, amazed at the fact they Tom is willing to free a runaway slave. He thinks that Tom has changed to share his views, but is once again let down by those who were once close to him. It turns out that Tom only agrees to do this after he learns that Jim is already free. He would not have agreed to help Huck otherwise because he still believes in the fact that slaves are property. When Huck discovers this and Jim is set free as he should always have been, he no longer wishes to live in a place where people are considered property and others do not keep their promises or base their acts on faulty premises. He then decides to leave for the Indian territories--a place where he can act as he knows is right and how things in the world should be.

What I appreciate most from this book is its ability to create rollercoaster sensation, in which the reader participates aside with the characters within the novel. The life seems unimagineable but it's that very reason that makes it memorable.
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explores the human flaws of an American society through the eyes of Huck Finn, who ultimately triumphs over societal expectations; Twain argues that in order for one to genuinely perceive flaws of a body of people, one has to be truly detached and thus objective of that group. Huck Finn is the epitome of an intrepid individual, who ignores societal expectations, when he learns that it is not he that is abnormal, but the others that are unusual. It is not until then that he truly assumes an objective stance and investigates and analyzes the slave-oriented society. Able to prevail against the initial despairs of isolation, Huck Finn ultimately overcomes through his eventual apathy towards the people's views. He does exactly what the others do not expect him to do so. Instead of diminishing, Finn firmly stands even stronger than before, an attitude that irate the rest. It is then that the individual truly undermines the established norm and understands societal flaws. Following one's moral compass, anyone can rise against and unjust conformity, upholding one's genuine beliefs.
The reason you should read this book is that it becomes good source, as it is cited and referred to in allusions.

I absolutely loved this book. It was assigned for my American Lit class this semester. The book is told in the voice of Huck Finn, the son of the town drunk. Huck starts the novel living with the widow Douglas, who wants to "sivilize" him. He won't put up with that, however, and starts on a series down the Mississippi river in which he befriends a runaway slave named Jim. I will refrain from giving any more thoughts on the book, because although I'm sure most people know the story, I don't want to ruin it for anyone.