The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain’s beloved masterpiece of boyhood—with an afterword by Alfred Kazin

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. It’s the best book we’ve had.”—Ernest Hemingway

“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.”

Thus begins The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain’s classic story about a young boy and his journey down the Mississippi. Hilariously picaresque, epic in scope, alive with the poetry and vigor of the American people, this was the first great novel to speak in a truly American voice.

Influencing subsequent generations of writers—from Sherwood Anderson to Twain’s fellow Missourian, T. S. Eliot, from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner to J. D. Salinger—Huckleberry Finn, like the river that flows through its pages, is one of the great sources that nourished and still nourishes the literature of America.