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Summary
Summary
Introduction by Frank Conroy
Commentary by William Dean Howells, Athenaeum, The Illustrated London News, and Hartford Christian Secretary
Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read
This irresistible tale of the adventures of two friends growing up in frontier America is one of Mark Twain's most popular novels. The farcical, colorful, and poignant escapades of Tom and his friend Huckleberry Finn brilliantly depict the humor and pathos of growing up on the geographic and cultural rim of nineteenth-century America. Originally intended for children, the book transcends genre in its magical depiction of innocence and possibility, and is now regarded as one of Twain's masterpieces. As Frank Conroy observes in his Introduction, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer "has become a sacred text within the body of American literature."
This version, which reproduces the Mark Twain Project edition, is the approved text of the Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association.
Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide
Author Notes
Mark Twain was born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He worked as a printer, and then became a steamboat pilot. He traveled throughout the West, writing humorous sketches for newspapers. In 1865, he wrote the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which was very well received. He then began a career as a humorous travel writer and lecturer, publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869, Roughing It in 1872, and, Gilded Age in 1873, which was co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner. His best-known works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mississippi Writing: Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Horn Book Review
This beautifully designed new edition is just in time for the centenary of Twain's death. Readers familiar with Tom Sawyer's exploits will enjoy revisiting familiar scenes and characters while those new to this beloved classic will laugh aloud as Tom gallivants with Huckleberry Finn and pines after the charming Becky Thatcher. Ingpen's delicate illustrations are full of beauty, magic, and mischief. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
New York Review of Books Review
"IT WAS AS though someone had switched off the wireless, and a voice that had been bawling in my ears, incessantly, fatuously, for days beyond number, had been suddenly cut short." Those lines are from Evelyn Waugh's novel "Brideshead Revisited." They came to me as I switched off the 2016 presidential campaign and listened to Nick Offerman's audiobook narration of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." What a tonic those eight hours were! Offerman's Illinois-raised voice and actor's talent suit him ideally to channel Mark Twain and his archetypal American Puck (that "P" isn't a typo), who played pirates with an archetypal American Huck, conned his pals into whitewashing the fence, fell in love with Becky Thatcher and showed up alive at his own funeral. Was it as satisfying as it was because of all the political screeching in the background? No. Listening to Offerman's "Tom Sawyer" would be ear balm anytime. Perhaps the reason is that this is a novel many of us first heard before we read it. "Tom Sawyer" and its sequel, "Huckleberry Finn," are arguably America's ur-bedtime stories. This may not be true for the millennial gen raised on apps and Twitter, but it was for mine and generations going back to Ulysses S. Grant's presidency. Listening to Tom's adventures over - gasp - a half-century after I last did sent me back to a time when early evenings found me sipping hot cocoa instead of vodka-and-tonics. In the preface to the novel, Twain tells us, "Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account." Hmm. Actually, Mr. Clemens is being a tad cagey with us. (Surprise!) On July 5, 1875, he wrote his friend William Dean Howells. the great editor and "Dean of American Letters" of the day: "I have finished the story & didn't take the chap beyond boyhood. . . . If I went on, now, & took him into manhood, he would just be like all the one-horse men in literature & the reader would conceive a hearty contempt for him. It is not a boy's book, at all. It will only be read by adults." On reading the manuscript, Howells wrote back: "It is altogether the best boy's story I ever read. It will be an immense success. But I think you ought to treat it explicitly as a boy's story. Grown-ups will enjoy it just as much if you do." In his afterword to the Oxford Mark Twain edition, the critic Albert Stone provides a tantalizing, and somewhat pause-giving, asterisk: Before Howells read the manuscript, Twain wrote and asked him to collaborate with him on a stage version: "I have my eye upon two young girls who can play 'Tom' and 'Huck.'" As Aunt Polly might say, "Laws!" Twain was conflicted about his novel in another way. In that July 5 letter to Howells, he says, "I perhaps made a mistake in not writing it in the first person." Nine years later, Twain would publish a novel that begins, "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." If it was timely to have this audio version amid an especially choleric and noisy election cycle, writing "Tom Sawyer" must have been a tonic for its author as well. It's the first novel Twain wrote entirely by himself. He probably began writing it in 1873. the year he and his co-author, Charles Dudley Warner, published "The Gilded Age," their novel of Reconstruction-era corruption and greed. What could be more cleansing, after literary immersion in the seamy and squalid arena of robber-baron America, than an adventure story about an idyllic boyhood on the Mississippi River? This book, he said, was "simply a hymn, put into prose form to give it a worldly air." The operative word there is "worldly." Tom's idyllic boyhood witnessed grave robbing and murder. One of his pals was the homeless son of the town drunk; another character is a child slave named Jim. Nostalgia can be a mixed bag. Shelley Fisher Fishkin, editor of the Oxford Mark Twain collection, points out that Twain "understood the nostalgia for a 'simpler' past that increased as that past receded - and he saw through the nostalgia to a past that was just as complex as the present. He recognized better than we did ourselves our potential for greatness and our potential for disaster." Decades later, Twain would call President Teddy Roosevelt "the Tom Sawyer of the political world of the 20th century." This was not intended as a compliment. As the incessantly cited line by Hemingway goes, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called 'Huckleberry Finn.'" Does it? "Huckleberry Finn" sold more copies than "Tom Sawyer" during Twain's lifetime. (Twain was overjoyed when it was banned by the Concord Library, estimating that censorship would sell an additional 25,000 copies.) But in the 20th century, "Tom Sawyer" reigned as the top best seller of all Twain's novels. Twain scholars themselves cannot explain this, so I sure won't try to, beyond recording my pleasure in listening to Nick Offerman read it to me anew over the course of eight happy hours. He makes it sound easy. It can't have been. This is one of the first novels to capture - indeed, define - the American vernacular. Try these lines on your tongue, see how they roll out: "'Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n me. 'Deed she would.' "'She! She never licks anybody - whacks 'em over the head with her thimble - and who cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful, but talk don't hurt - anyways it don't if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give you a marvel. I'll give you a white alley!' "Jim began to waver. "'White alley, Jim! And it's a bully taw.'" How's your tongue doing? In Chapter 5, the minister of the village church gives out the hymn, which he does "with a relish": "At church 'sociables' he was always called upon to read poetry; and when he was through, the ladies would lift up their hands and let them fall helplessly in their laps, and 'wall' their eyes, and shake their heads, as much as to say, 'Words cannot express it; it is too beautiful, too beautiful for this mortal earth.'" The minister, Twain tells us, "was regarded as a wonderful reader." So he was; so he is, 140 years later. 'Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women.' CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY'S latest novel, "The Relic Master," is now out in paperback.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter 1 "Tom!" No answer. "Tom!" No answer. "What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!" No answer. The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them, about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service;-she could have seen through a pair of stove lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear: "Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll-" She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom-and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat. "I never did see the beat of that boy!" She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice, at an angle calculated for distance, and shouted: "Y-o-u-u Tom!" There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight. "There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?" "Nothing." "Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that truck?" "I don't know, aunt." "Well I know. It's jam-that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch." The switch hovered in the air-the peril was desperate- "My! Look behind you, aunt!" The old lady whirled around, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled, on the instant, scrambled up the high board fence, and disappeared over it. His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh. "Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a-laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening,* and I'll just be obleeged to make him work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've got to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child." Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next day's wood and split the kindlings, before supper-at least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work. Tom's younger brother, (or rather, half-brother) Sid, was already through with his part of the work (picking up chips,) for he was a quiet boy and had no adventurous, troublesome ways. While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and very deep-for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning. Said she: "Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?" "Yes'm." "Powerful warm, warn't it?" "Yes'm." "Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?" A bit of a scare shot through Tom-a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He searched aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing. So he said: "No'm-well, not very much." The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said: "But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move: "Some of us pumped on our heads-mine's damp yet. See?" Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new inspiration: "Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it to pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!" The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed. "Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is-better'n you look. This time." She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom had stumbled into obedient conduct for once. But Sidney said: "Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread, but it's black." "Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!" But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said: "Siddy, I'll lick you for that." In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into the lappels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them-one needle carried white thread and the other black. He said: "She'd never noticed, if it hadn't been for Sid. Consound it! sometimes she sews it with white and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to geeminy she'd stick to one or t'other-I can't keep the run of 'em. But I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!" He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though-and loathed him. Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time-just as men's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practice it undisturbed. It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music-the reader probably remembers how to do it if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet. No doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer. The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom checked his whistle. A stranger was before him-a boy a shade larger than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an impressive curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy was well dressed, too-well dressed on a week-day. This was simply astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue cloth roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes on-and yet it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom's vitals. The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his nose at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved-but only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the time. Finally Tom said: "I can lick you!" "I'd like to see you try it." "Well, I can do it." "No you can't, either." "Yes I can." "No you can't." "I can." "You can't." "Can!" "Can't!" An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said: "What's your name?" "Tisn't any of your business, maybe." "Well I 'low I'll make it my business." "Well why don't you?" "If you say much I will." "Much-much-much! There now." "Oh, you think you're mighty smart, don't you? I could lick you with one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to." "Well why don't you do it? You say you can do it." "Well I will, if you fool with me." "Oh yes-I've seen whole families in the same fix." "Smarty! You think you're some, now, don't you? Oh what a hat!" "You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you to knock it off-and anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs." "You're a liar!" "You're another." "You're a fighting liar and dasn't take it up." "Aw-take a walk!" "Say-if you gimme much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a rock off'n your head." "Oh, of course you will." "Well I will." "Well why don't you do it then? What do you keep saying you will, for? Why don't you do it? It's because you're afraid." "I ain't afraid." "You are." "I ain't." "You are." Another pause, and more eyeing and sidling around each other. Presently they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said: "Get away from here!" "Get away yourself!" "I won't." "I won't either." So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with hate. But neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution, and Tom said: "You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he can thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it, too." "What do I care for your big brother? I've got a brother that's bigger than he is-and what's more, he can throw him over that fence, too." [Both brothers were imaginary.] "That's a lie." "Your saying so don't make it so." Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said: "I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't stand up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal a sheep." The new boy stepped over promptly, and said: "Now you said you'd do it, now let's see you do it." "Don't you crowd me, now; you better look out." "Well you said you'd do it-why don't you do it?" "By jingo! for two cents I will do it." The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them out with derision. Tom struck them to the ground. In an instant both boys were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like cats; and for the space of a minute they tugged and tore at each other's hair and clothes, punched and scratched each other's noses, and covered themselves with dust and glory. Presently the confusion took form, and through the fog of battle Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy and pounding him with his fists. "Holler 'nuff!" said he. The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying,-mainly from rage. "Holler 'nuff!"-and the pounding went on. At last the stranger got out a smothered "'Nuff!" and Tom let him up and said: "Now that'll learn you. Better look out who you're fooling with, next time." The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing, snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and threatening what he would do to Tom the "next time he caught him out." To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather; and as soon as his back was turned the new boy snatched up a stone, threw it and hit him between the shoulders and then turned tail and ran like an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the window and declined. At last the enemy's mother appeared, and called Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went away; but he said he "lowed" to "lay" for that boy. He got home pretty late, that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the person of his aunt; and when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in its firmness. Excerpted from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
