This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and reader's notes to help the modern reader contend with Twain's language, allusions, and deliberate misstatements and malapropisms.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, became an instant success in the year of its publication, 1884, but was seen by some as unfit for children to read because of its language, grammar, and "uncivilized hero." The book has sparked controversy ever since, but most scholars continue to praise it as a modern masterpiece, an essential read, and one of the greatest novels in all of American literature. Twain's satiric treatment of racism, religious excess, and rural simplicity and his accuracy in presenting dialects mark Huck Finn as a classic. His unswerving confidence in Huck's wisdom and maturity, along with the well-rounded and sympathetic portrayal of Jim draw readers into the book, holding them until Huck's last words rejecting all attempts to "sivilize" him.
Mark Twain's classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, tells the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.
Though some of the situations in Huckleberry Finn are funny in themselves (the cockeyed Shakespeare production in Chapter 21 leaps instantly to mind), this book's humor is found mostly in Huck's unique worldview and his way of expressing himself. Describing his brief sojourn with the Widow Douglas after she adopts him, Huck says: "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." Underlying Twain's good humor is a dark subcurrent of Antebellum cruelty and injustice that makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a frequently funny book with a serious message.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Great book! When addressing controversy think of context.:
I can't say more on the plot because it's quite obvious what the plot is just from illustrations of the novel. But on the "controversial" aspect of the novel involving the excessive use of the N word, people have to think of the time period that Twain is writing about and when the novel was published.
The novel takes place in Missouri (a slave border state) in the 1830s. We use the term African-American or black now. Before that it was Afro-Americans, coloreds, Negr--s. The list goes on and on. The... more info
Finn & Sawyer Part 2:
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... more info
Exceptional edition:
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:
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... more info
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