Book description
With an essay by Harold Bloom.
'I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git around
it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?'
The original Great American Novel, an incomparable adventure story
and a classic of anarchic humour, Twain's masterpiece sees Huckleberry
Finn and Jim the slave escape their difficult lives by fleeing down
the Mississippi on a raft. There, they find steamships, feuding
families, an unlikely Duke and King and vital lessons about the world
in which they live. With its unforgettable cast of characters,
Hemingway called this 'the best book we've ever had'.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in
English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the
beginning of the First World War.
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835, Mark Twain spent his youth in
Hannibal, Missouri, which forms the setting for his two greatest works,
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
. Trying his hand at printing, typesetting and then gold-mining, the
former steam-boat pilot eventually found his calling in journalism and
travel writing. Dubbed 'the father of American literature' by William
Faulkner, Twain died in 1910 after a colourful life of travelling,
bankruptcy and great literary success.
