> Skip to content
  • Published: 2 January 2015
  • ISBN: 9780143107323
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $19.99

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn




In recent years, despite persistent efforts to "clean up" the racial epithets in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, neither its enduring cultural presence nor its consistent use in the classroom has diminished, demonstrating the wide-ranging influence of the novel's themes and its continuing importance in American society. Written against the backdrop of the nation's own desire to "light out" and expand into the promised future of the West, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn stands as a reminder of the difficulty of escaping inherited traditions. It is a vignette of a turbulent, yet hopeful epoch in American history, defining the experience of a nation in voices often satirical, but always authentic. With critical debate over the symbolic significance of Huck and Jim's voyage still fresh, Twain's novel remains a major work that can be enjoyed on many levels: as an incomparable adventure story and as a classic of American humor.

This edition features a new introduction and notes by leading Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen.

The classic boyhood adventure tale, updated with a new introduction by noted Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen and a foreword by Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Republic of Imagination

In recent years, neither the persistent effort to “clean up” the racial epithets in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn nor its consistent use in the classroom have diminished, highlighting the novel’s wide-ranging influence and its continued importance in American society. An incomparable adventure story, it is a vignette of a turbulent, yet hopeful epoch in American history, defining the experience of a nation in voices often satirical, but always authentic.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

  • Published: 2 January 2015
  • ISBN: 9780143107323
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $19.99

Other books in the series

Maldoror and Poems
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Mark Twain

Mark Twain's real name was Sam Clemens, and he was born in 1835 in a small town on the Mississippi, one of seven children. He smoked cigars at the age of eight, and aged nine he stowed away on a steamboat. He left school at 11 and worked at a grocery store, a bookstore, a blacksmith's and a newspaper, where he was allowed to write his own stories (not all of them true). He then worked on a steamboat, where he got the name 'Mark Twain' (from the call given by the boat's pilot when their boat is in safe waters). Eventually he turned to journalism again, travelled round the world, and began writing books which became very popular. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are his most famous novels. He poured the money he earned from writing into new business ventures and crazy inventions, such as a clamp to stop babies throwing off their bed covers, a new boardgame, and a hand grenade full of extinguishing liquid to throw on a fire. With his shock of white hair and trademark white suit Mark Twain became the most famous American writer in the world. He died in 1910.

Also by Mark Twain

See all

Praise for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn."
Ernest Hemingway