The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain | Introduction & Overview

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Introduction

Mark Twain's publication in 1876 of his popular novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer reversed a brief downturn in his success following the publication of his previous novel, The Gilded Age. Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer while he and his family were living in Hartford, Connecticut, and while Twain was enjoying his fame. The novel, which tells of the escapades of a young boy and his friends in St. Petersburg, Missouri, a village near the Mississippi River, recalls Twain's own childhood in a small Missouri town. The friendship of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn is one of the most celebrated in American literature, built on imaginative adventures, shared superstitions, and loyalty that rises above social convention. Twain's American reading audience loved this novel and its young hero, and the novel remains one of the most popular and famous works of American literature. The novel and its characters...
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