Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Front cover of the 1884 first edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a children's novel of forty-three chapters by the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who wrote professionally under the pseudonym of Mark Twain. It was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. It is a sequel to Twain's 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The action takes place some forty years before the novel was published in the pre-Civil War American South. The story begins in the fictional village of St. Petersburg in Missouri at the point at which The Adventures of Tom Sawyer finishes. The homeless boy Huckleberry Finn, the novel's title character and protagonist, and his adventurous friend Tom Sawyer have recently become rich after finding twelve thousand dollars in gold coins in an abandoned house. A wealthy woman known as the Widow Douglas, whose life Huckleberry Finn saves in the previous book, decides to look after and educate the outcast boy. Huckleberry Finn goes to live in the Widow Douglas' house, which is also home to her elderly sister Miss Watson who has a slave named Jim. The boy dislikes the attempts of the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson to "civilize" him. Huckleberry Finn's long absent and alcoholic father finds out about his son's sudden wealth. He returns to St. Petersburg to claim the money for himself. He takes Huckleberry Finn away from the Widow Douglas' house to live in a cabin in the woods. In order to escape from his abusive father, as well as from the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, Huckleberry Finn fakes his own murder and hides out on an island in the Mississippi River. He discovers that Miss Watson's slave Jim has run away and is also hiding out on the island. After sneaking back to St. Petersburg one evening, Huckleberry Finn finds out Jim is suspected of being his murderer and that men are looking for him. The boy and the runaway slave leave the island on a raft and sail down the Mississippi, traveling by night and hiding by day. Due to thick fog, they miss the town from which Jim could easily escape to freedom in the North and continue to aimlessly sail south. They are joined by two con men, who claim to be the rightful heir to an English dukedom and the rightful king of France. Although Huckleberry soon realizes they are lying, he continues to call the two men the duke and the king. Huckleberry Finn tells the two men that Jim is his slave but they travel by night to avoid trouble with people who might mistake Jim for a runaway. So that they can travel by day, the duke decides to say that they are poor people who have captured an escaped slave. He has a handbill printed which states that Jim is a runaway slave from a non-existent plantation in New Orleans and that there is a $200 reward for his return. They make stops at various towns along the river where the duke and the king try to trick the local people into parting with their money. After the duke and the king fail to keep hold of much money from their various scams, the king shows two men the proof that Jim is a runaway slave with a $200 reward on his head and gives him to them in exchange for $40. Huckleberry Finn finds out that Jim has been taken to the home of the wealthy Silas Phelps. He is being kept locked up there until he can be returned to New Orleans. Huckleberry Finn makes his way to the Phelps' house. Silas Phelps' wife Sally is expecting her nephew to arrive. She immediately mistakes Huckleberry Finn for that nephew, who turns out to be Huckleberry's good friend Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry continues to impersonate his friend. When the real Tom Sawyer arrives, he pretends to be his brother Sid. When he finds out that Huckleberry Finn wants to help Jim get away to freedom, Tom Sawyer is excited by the idea of helping a prisoner to escape. Tom, however, insists that the escape has to be done properly according to the way such escapes are always done in adventure novels. Tom comes up with an elaborate escape plan. It involves making the cabin where Jim is being kept more like the cells Tom has read about in books and making Jim behave more like prisoners always do in those books. Both Huckleberry Finn and Jim assume Tom knows best and go along with the plan.

Huckleberry Finn. 1885 illustration by the American artist Edward Winsor Kemble.

Unlike The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which is narrated in the third person by an omniscient narrator, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is narrated in the first person by Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn speaks in a non-standard dialect of English that includes many structures that would be considered ungrammatical in standard English. His speech, along with the speech of all the other characters in the book, is written phonetically, meaning that there are many unusual spellings in the novel. According to an introductory note by Twain, several different dialects are used in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, including, "the Missouri negro dialect, the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect, the ordinary 'Pike County' dialect, and four modified varieties of the last". The only major character who usually speaks in standard American English is the con man known as the duke. The non-standard grammar, curious spellings and use of outdated slang are likely to make the novel difficult for some readers to understand. Non-native speakers of English are likely to require an annotated edition of the novel, preferably one annotated in their first language, in order to read it in the original. Many readers may find that reading the novel along to a good audiobook recording helps them to understand and enjoy it better.

When it was first published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was heavily criticized for its use of coarse language. More recently, the repeated use of racially offensive language in the novel has proved problematic. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been criticized for being overly reliant on racial stereotypes, although Twain's intentions in writing it were anti-racist. The novel highlights some of the contradictions in the United States., a country which lauds freedom, but where slavery was permitted long after it had been banned in other places, where "all men are created equal", but racism is rampant. The language, violence and examples of hypocrisy have gotten the book banned in many places. According to Banned in the U.S.A by Herbert N. Foerstel as quoted on About.com it is the fourth most commonly banned book (in the U.S.).

Advenyures of Huckleberry Finn has been adapted to other media multiple times. There are at least twenty different screen adaptations of the novel.

Plot

The narrator, Huckleberry Finn, begins by saying that readers may have read about him in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Huckleberry says that novel is mostly true, although it contains some exaggerations. He thinks that is only natural because most people lie sometimes.

At the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the boy Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn, a homeless boy who has been treated as a social outcast by the people of the village of St. Petersburg for his entire life, become rich after finding twelve thousand dollars in gold coins hidden in an abandoned house. They are allowed to keep six thousand dollars each. The money is kept safe for them by Judge Thatcher and they are both paid a dollar a day in interest. At the end of the previous book, Huckleberry Finn also saves the Widow Douglas from being attacked by the criminal Injun Joe. To show her gratitude, the Widow Douglas decides to take Huckleberry Finn into her home, care for him and educate him. Huckleberry does not like living with the Widow Douglas because she will not allow him to smoke or swear and she forces him to adopt table manners that are totally alien to him. After a few days, he runs away. Tom Sawyer finds him. He tells his friend that he is starting a gang of robbers, all of the members of which have to be respectable. Huckleberry can only join the gang if he goes back to live with the Widow Douglas. For that reason alone, Huckleberry goes back to her.

Both the Widow Douglas and her elderly sister who lives with her, Miss Watson, try to get Huckleberry to change his behavior, educate him and teach him about the Bible. Miss Watson tells him about Heaven and Hell. Huckleberry cannot see any advantage in going to Heaven, especially since Miss Watson tells him that Tom Sawyer will definitely not go there, and decides not to bother aiming for it.

At night, Tom Sawyer calls out to Huckleberry by meowing like as cat. Huckleberry leaves his bedroom and the two boys quietly tiptoe through the Widow Douglas' yard. Huckleberry, however, makes a sound when he trips over a rock. The sound alerts Jim, Miss Watson's slave, who is at the kitchen window. Jim declares to any intruders that he will stay exactly where he is until whoever made the noise reveals himself. Eventually, however, Jim falls asleep. Tom thinks that they should tie up Kim. Huckleberry persuades him not to. Tom settles for playing a joke on Jim instead. He takes Jim's hat off his head and hangs it on a hook. Against Huckleberry's wishes, Tom also takes some candles from the kitchen and leaves five cents to pay for them. It is revealed that Jim thought witches took his hat and that the Devil left the five cents. He later says that witches forced him to go all over the world before taking him back to where they started from and removing his hat. Slaves come from miles away to listen to his story and see the coin he says he got from the Devil.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn meet up with some other boys and go bu boat to a cave. Tom tells all the boys gathered there that they are now the band of robbers known as Tom Sawyer's Gang. He makes them sign an oath in their own blood in which they promise that they will kill the family of any gang member who reveals the gang's secrets. Some of the boys point out that Huckleberry Finn does not have any family, apart from his alcoholic and long absent father. Huckleberry says that they can kill Miss Watson instead and they agree that is acceptable. Shortly afterwards, one boy says that he does not want to be in the gang anymore and threatens to reveal its secrets. Tom sawyer buys his silence with five cents and allows him to go. Tom Sawyer explains that they will rob people they meet on the road. They will kill some of the men and ransom others. Tom is asked what "ransom" means. He does not know but thinks it means keeping the men prisoner until they die. Tom says that they will never kill woman but will take them prisoner instead. The beautiful women prisoners will all eventually fall in love with their charming captors.

Tom Sawyer's Gang never rob or kill anyone. They only pretend to. Tom tells fantastical tales about the wealthy people who are coming to the area that they can rob. He tells Huckleberry Finn that hundreds of Spaniards and Arabs with hundreds of camels and elephants carrying a precious cargo will be camping nearby and they can attack them. When Tom Sawyer's Gang arrive at the place where he said the Spaniards and Arabs would be, they see only a Sunday school picnic. They manage to steal some doughnuts and jam from the children, although they are forced to give them back by the teachers. When Huckleberry Finn complains that he did not see any Spaniards, Arabs, ca,e;s or elephants, Tom Sawyer explains that they were enchanted and made to look like a Sunday school picnic. He adds that if Huckleberry were not so uncultured and if he had read Don Quixote, he would understand. Within a month, all of the boys have quit Tom Sawyer's Gang, including Huckleberry Finn.

A rumor starts to circulate that Huckleberry Finn's father, whom Huckleberry always calls "Pap", has come back to the area after having been away for more than a year. The body of a drowned man with long hair is found and is buried immediately afterwards. It is assumed to be the body of Huckleberry Finn's father. Huckleberry, however, comes to believe it was really the body of a woman in man's clothes and is certain that his father is still at large.

Huckleberry Finn settles into his new life with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson. He attends school and learns to read and write. One winter day, he sees boot tracks in the snow. In the heel of one of the boots is the shape of a cross made from two nails. Huckleberry Finn's father placed a cross made of two nails in the heel if one of his boots to ward off the Devil. In no doubt that his father has returned because he heard about his son becoming rich, Huckleberry goes to see Judge Thatcher. He tries to tell the judge that he no longer wants his six thousand dollars and repeatedly says that the judge can keep it. Eventually, Judge Thatcher seems to agree to buy Huckleberry's fortune off him for one dollar.

In need of some advice, Huckleberry goes to see Jim. Jim has a large hairball that was taken from an ox's stomach which he says has magical powers and can predict the future. Jim says the hairball told him that a good and an evil angel are watching over his father and it is uncertain which one will win out in the end. He also tells Huckleberry that he will know much sorrow in his life as well as much happiness and advises him to stay away from water because that is where he will die.

When Huckleberry goes up to his bedroom, his father is waiting there for him. Pap Finn in his filthy old clothes disapproves of the new clean clothes that his son is wearing. He is also disgusted by the idea of Huckleberry going to school and becoming the first person in the Finn family to learn to read. He is certain that his son now thinks he is better than him and finds that unacceptable. When Pap asks Huckleberry if he is really as rich as people say he is, the boy says he does not have any money anymore. Pap does not believe him. He takes the dollar that Judge thatcher gave Huckleberry and spends it on whiskey.

The following day, Pap goes to Judge thatcher's house and orders him to hand over Huckleberry's money. Judge thatcher refuses. He and the Widow Douglas try to become Huckleberry's legal guardians. The judge who hears their case, however, is new to the area, does not know Pap Finn and refuses to separate a father from his son. When Pap Finn ends up in jail after going on a drunken spree, the same judge decides to take Pap Finn into his home to try to reform him. After some time, Pap Finn tearfully declares that he has become a new man and will never touch alcohol again. He soon falls back into his old ways, however, and the judge gives up on trying to reform him.

Pap Finn starts legal proceedings against Judge Thatcher to make him hand over Huckleberry's money. He also continues to criticize his son for attending school. Huckleberry, who did not much care for school before, now happily goes there just to spite his father. Unable to bear the idea of his son becoming educated and respectable any longer, Pap Finn abducts Huckleberry and takes him to a cabin deep in the forest on the Illinois shore of the Mississippi River.

Huckleberry becomes somewhat settled into his new life with his father. Pap Finn, however, is often drunk and is always abusive to his son when he is. Huckleberry neither wants to stay with his father nor return to the Widow Douglas. He decides to escape. He finds an old saw and begins to use it to make a hike in one of the cabin's wooden walls.

Pap returns to the cabin one evening. He is angry because Judge Thatcher managed to delay the legal proceedings that he started against him and because he has heard that, although he will probably be given Huckleberry's money, he will probably lose custody of his son. In a drunken stupor, he later tries to attack Huckleberry with a knife, convinced that his son is really an Angel of Death. He passes out. When he comes to in the morning, he finds that Huckleberry is pointing a rifle at him.

Pap remembers nothing about his drunken attempt to attack Huckleberry the night before and asks why the gun is pointed at him. Huckleberry tells him that some intruders tried to get in and he got the rifle ready in vase they came back. Before leaving for the day, Pap tells Huckleberry to get some fish from the river for breakfast. Huckleberry finds a canoe. He sees his chance to escape. He realizes that he can make use of the fact that his father thinks there are robbers about by faking a break in and his own murder. If he is believed to be dead, he will never have to go back to the Widow Douglas' house either. he takes the canoe and hides it in the woods. After his father has gone, Huckleberry finishes cutting the hole in the cabin wall but then covers it up. He takes food, utensils and everything of any value from the cabin and puts it all in the canoe. He kills a feral pig. He destroys the door of the cabin with an ax and sprinkles some of the pig's blood on the floor. he puts some more of the pig's blood on an ax along with some of his own hair. He drags a heavy sack to a creek, making it look as if his body has been dragged out and dumped there. Huckleberry goes to the canoe and waits until night. He makes his way to Jackson's Island, an island in the Mississippi River near St. Petersburg.

When he wakes up on the island the following morning, Huckleberry sees a ferryboat on the river. His father is on board the boat, as are Judge Thatcher and his daughter Bessie, Tom sawyer, Tom's Aunt Polly and other people Huckleberry knows. Huckleberry realizes that they are looking for his body. The boat fires cannons to make his body rise to the surface. Loaves of bread with mercury in them, which are supposed to float towards the body, are placed on the water. Huckleberry id pleased that some of the bread does find his body, albeit his living body. He takes a loaf of bread out of the river and eats it. He is delighted to find that it is much better quality bread than he is used to eat.

Huckleberry spends three happy days alone on the island. He then comes across remains of a fire and realizes he is not alone there. On the fourth day, Huckleberry is delighted to find that the other person on the island is Jim. At first, Jim thinks that Huckleberry is a ghost. The boy eventually persuades him that he is alive and faked his own murder. Jim explains that he ran away because he overheard Miss Watson talking about selling him to a slave trader who would take him to New Orleans, thus separating him from his wife and two children. To hide their presence from anyone else who might come to the island, Huckleberry and Jim take the canoe and their food to a large cave in the island's center. Huckleberry and Jim stay safe inside the cave when a terrible storm comes.

The river floods as a result of the storm. Several things float down the flooded river past the island, including a raft and an old two-story wooden house. Huckleberry and Jim go inside the house. They see the body of a dead man, who has been shot in the back, lying face down on the floor. Jim looks at the man's face but will not allow Huckleberry to see it, saying that it is too ghastly a sight for the boy. Jim and Huckleberry take everything they can that they think might be useful from the house.

Huckleberry decides to play a trick on Jim by placing a dead rattlesnake next to his bed. Unfortunately, the dead snake's live mate goes to it and bites Jim's leg, causing it to become swollen. It takes several days for Jim to recover. The extremely superstitious Jim warns Huckleberry that touching snake skin is one of the unluckiest things that a person can do and they are likely to suffer a lot of bad luck for a long time. The equally superstitious Huckleberry firmly believes this.

Wanting to gather information, Huckleberry says he wants to sneak back to St. Petersburg at night. Jim agrees to this but insists on Huckleberry disguising himself as a girl, something he is able to do because they took some dresses from the old wooden house. Dressed in girl's clothes, Huckleberry makes his way back to St. Petersburg at night. At the window of a previously empty shack, he sees a woman he has never seen before. Since the woman is obviously new to the area, Huckleberry is confident she will not recognize him and will not know he is not really a girl. He knocks on the door and the woman tells him to enter. He says that he is name id Sarah Williams from Hookerville, making her way to her uncle's house and has stopped because she is tired.

The woman and her guest chat about various things. Eventually, the conversation comes round to the topic of Huckleberry Finn's murder. The woman says that Pap Finn is a suspect. He narrowly escaped being lynched and has now left the village. There is a $200 reward on his head. Jim is also a suspect because he ran away on the same day that Huckleberry was murdered. There is a $300 reward on his head. The woman's husband has been looking for Jim. She has advised him to go to Jackson's Island because she has seen smoke coming from there. He plans to go there that night with another man and a gun.

Starting to become suspicious of her guest, the woman asks for Huckleberry's name again. he says, "Mary Williams", When the woman points out that he said "Sarah Williams" before, he says that his full name is Sarah Mary Williams. The woman tells him that, by his behavior, he has revealed himself to really be a boy. The woman asks her guest to reveal the truth about himself, adding that she supposes he is an apprentice who has run away from a cruel master. Huckleberry says that is indeed the case and his name is George Peters. The woman promises she will not tell on him and encourages him to continue the journey to his uncle's house.

Huckleberry makes his way back to Jackson's Island. He makes a decoy campfire a long way from the cave. He tells Jim that they have to go at once. They put everything they can on the raft that came to the island when the river flooded and leave.

Jim builds a kind of tent, that Huckleberry calls a "wigwam", on the raft, They use it to shelter from the sun and the rain and to keep their belongings dry. To avoid detection, Huckleberry and Jim always travel by night and stay hidden during the day. On the fifth night of their journey, they pass the bright lights of St. Louis. Huckleberry goes ashore very early in the morning to get food, sometimes buying it, sometimes hunting for it and sometimes "borrowing" it. Thanks to the moral education he received from the Widow Douglas, Huckleberry knows that what his father taught him to call "borrowing" is really stealing. He tells Jim that he feels guilty about doing it. Jim and Huckleberry decide that it would be a good compromise if they agree to take some things they need to survive but agree never to steal other things ever again. After much discussion, they decide that they can steal everything apart from crab apples and persimmons.

On a stormy night, Huckleberry and Jim sight a wrecked steamboat. Huckleberry wants to go on board the wreck, partly so that he can take useful items from it and partly just to have an adventure like his friend Tom Sawyer would. Jim does not think it is a food idea but they go on board anyway. On board the steamboat, Huckleberry overhears three robbers. Two of them have turned on the third because they believe he is about to to inform on them. They talk about killing him. One of the robbers persuades his companion to just leave the third on board the wreck because it is about to sink anyway. Huckleberry finds Jim. He tells him that they have to stop a murder from being committed by cutting the robbers' boat loose. That would prevent them from escaping and force all three men to stay on board the sinking steamboat until they drown or are found and arrested. In response, Jim tells Huckleberry that their own raft has broken loose and floated away.

Huckleberry and Jim get into the robbers'boat, that already has some stolen items in it, and quietly row away. They find their own raft. Before the wreck is completely out of sight, however, Huckleberry begins to feel sorry for the three men on board it. Jim waits for Huckleberry as he goes ashore to get help. On shore, Huckleberry finds a ferryboat and wakes up its watchman, who is revealed to also be its captain. Huckleberry spins an elaborate yarn that explains how his entire family came to be on board the wrecked steamboat. The ferryman agrees to go there to rescue them. Huckleberry rejoins Jim and they sink the robbers' boat. Huckleberry feels good about helping the robbers and is sure that the Widow Douglas would be proud of him. Later that night, however, the remains of the wrecked steamboat float past the raft. Huckleberry calls out to it but there is no answer. It is clear that the three robbers have not survived.

The items that the robbers took from the wrecked steamboat include clothes, cigars and several books that Huckleberry enjoys reading. From the books, and from his own imagination, Huckleberry tells Jim amazing tales of kings. Jim says that he was not aware there were so many kings since the only ones he knew about before were the kings in a deck of cards and the biblical King Solomon. Jim disagrees with popular idea that King Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived and says he must have been a fool for suggesting chopping a child in half. Huckleberry tries to tell Jim that he has completely missed the point of the story of the Judgment of Solomon. Jim, however, holds fast to the opinion that Solomon was a fool. Huckleberry tells Jim about King Louis XVII of France, also known as the Dauphin, the yooung son of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette who were both executed during the French Revolution. Although the official story is that Louis XVII died in prison when he was a child, some people believe that he is still alive and that he escaped and came to America. When Jim asks what Louis XVII might be doing in America, Huckleberry says that he could be teaching French. Jim is completely unaware that there are any other languages apart from the one he knows. He has always assumed that all humans speak the same language. Huckleberry insists that there is such a language as French and that he has learned a few words of it from the books he has read. Jim, however, remains unconvinced.

Huckleberry and Jim approach the mouth of the Ohio River. They plan to go to the town of Cairo, where Jim can travel by steamboat to the North where slavery is outlawed and he will be free,

One evening, Huckleberry and Jim can see that it is about to get foggy. They decide that they should not travel any further that night and should tie the raft to a tree instead. Huckleberry leaves the raft and gets into a canoe to go ahead and look for a suitable tree to which the raft can be tied. The fog, however, comes on very quickly. Huckleberry finds himself separated from the raft and Jim. Jim repeatedly calls out to Huckleberry but they are unable to find each other. The raft runs aground in the fog. When the fog clears, Huckleberry sees that he is not far from the raft. He gets back on board it. He sees that the raft took on a lot of leaves and branches when it ran aground and one of the two oars got smashed. Jim is asleep. When Jim wakes up, he is delighted to see Huckleberry again. Huckleberry appears to be very surprised. He says that he has been on the raft the entire time and that he talked to Jim until he fell asleep. The boy insists that his leaving the raft and the fog were just part of a dream Jim had. When Jim finally becomes thoroughly convinced that it all had been just a dream, Huckleberry asks Jim how he can account for all the leaves and branches on the raft and the smashed oar. Jim is extremely angry with Huckleberry for having made a fool of him. Although, as a result of his upbringing, Huckleberry sees apologizing to a black man as an extremely humiliating act, he apologizes to Jim anyway and never plays any tricks on him ever again.

Jim and Huckleberry continue to keep a look out for the town of Cairo. Huckleberry, however, begins to feel guilty about helping a runaway slave to escape because it is illegal and people who oppose slavery, known as abolitionists, are hated in Huckleberry's community. He also thinks it is wrong to take Jim away from his "rightful owner" Miss Watson, a good old woman who tried to educate Huckleberry and reform his character. Huckleberry is more troubled when Jim talks about his plans to get his wife and children to join him, either by buying their freedom or, if that is not possible, by getting some abolitionists to help them escape. Jim and Huckleberry think they can see the lights of Cairo. Huckleberry says that he will go ahead in the canoe to check. He has secretly decided to inform on Jim and get him sent back to slavery with Miss Watson. He feels conflicted, however, when Jim calls out to him, telling him that he is his only friend and the only person who would keep a promise to him.

Huckleberry sees some men in a boat. They tell him that the town he can see is not Cairo and that they are looking for runaway slaves. They ask who is on board the raft. Huckleberry says that his family, who are all suffering from smallpox, are on board. Not wanting to get infected, the men back away. They feel sorry for Huckleberry, however, and give him forty dollars. Huckleberry feels bad for not having done what he thinks was morally right by telling the men about the runaway slave Jim. He realizes, however, that he would feel just as bad if he had informed on Jim. He decides not to worry about morality in future and simply do whatever is most convenient at the time.

Jim and Huckleberry pass several towns. They realize that they must have missed Cairo on the night of the fog. Their canoe is also stolen when they stop one day. They put both of those occurrences down to the bad luck that Huckleberry brought on them by touching snake skin.

A steamboat collides with the raft and destroys it. Huckleberry and Jim both jump off it in time but are separated. Huckleberry swims to shore and is cornered by a pack of dogs. The dogs are called off and Huckleberry is invited insider a house. The house belongs to the Grangerford family. Huckleberry tells them his name is George Jackson and spins an elaborate yarn about how he came to be orphaned and alone. The Grangerfords are suspicious of Huckleberry at first, thinking that he may belong to the Shepherdson family or at least be connected to it. Very soon, however. they come to trust Huckleberry. He shares a bedroom with Buck Grangerford, a boy of about the same age as Huckleberry, and is told that he can stay for as long as he wants.

Huckleberry is impressed by the Grangerfords' home. There are a few books there, including The Pilgrim's Progress that Huckleberry reads although he does not really understand it. The decorations in the house include several paintings by Emmeline Grangerford, Buck's sister who has died. All of the paintings have something to do with death. Emmeline also wrote poetry about death, famously composing a poem whenever anybody in the area died. Although Huckleberry thinks it is sad that Emmeline died young, he also thinks that she might be happier in the graveyard.

The family is headed by Colonel Grangerford, whom Huckleberry admires for being a true gentleman. In addition to his youngest son Buck, he has two adult sons, Bob and Tom, and two daughters, 25-tear-old Miss Charlotte and 20-year-old Miss Sophia. The Grangerfords have a huge estate and more than a hundred slaves. Every member of the family has a personal slave. Even Huckleberry is assigned a personal slave named Jack, although he rarely asks Jack to do anything for him.

One day, Huckleberry sees Buck shoot at a young man on a horse. Buck misses. Huckleberry asks him why he tried to kill the man. Buck explains that the young man was Harvey Shepherdson and that he tried to kill him because the Grangerfords are fighting a feud with the Shepherdsons. Nobody knows how, when or why the feud started. In the past year, two people were killed in the feud, one of them a 14-year-old Grangerford boy. When Huckleberry says that the boy's killer was a coward, Buck says that is not true because all of the Shepherdsons are just as brave as all of the Grangerfords. The Grangerfords and Shepherdsons attend the same church. They keep their rifles between their legs throughout the sermon.

One Sunday, Miss Sophia asks Huckleberry to go back to the church to retrieve the Bible she left there. Huckleberry is suspicious. He finds that inside the Bible is a piece of paper with "Half past two" written on it. Miss Sophia is overjoyed when Huckleberry gives her the Bible with the piece of paper inside it.

Shortly afterwards, the slave Jack persuades Huckleberry to follow him. He leads Huckleberry to a swamp where the boy is surprised to find Jim waiting for him. Jim explains that he also swam to the same shore as Huckleberry and saw him go inside the house. Jim did not dare approach the house because of the dogs. He was later helped by the Grangerfords' slaves. He retrieved the raft and has now finished repairing it.

The following day, Huckleberry awakes to find that none of the Grangerfords are at home. Jack explains that Miss Sophia suddenly ran away to marry Harvey Shepherdson. To restore the family's honor, the Grangerford men are currently fighting a full battle with the Shepherdson men, the women having gone to stay with relatives for their safety. From a safe hiding place at the top of a tree, Huckleberry sees Buck and all the Grangerford men get killed in the battle. He regrets not having told Colonel Grangerford about the paper with "Half past two" written on it, certain that he could have stopped the fight from happening. Huckleberry does not climb down from the tree until it is almost dark. He covers the faces of the Grangerford men and cries when he covers Buck's face. He rejoins Jim and they sail away on the raft.

Huckleberry finds another canoe and uses it to explore a little. Two men suddenly appear on the shore. One of them is about 70-years-old, bald and has a long gray beard. The other is about 30-years-old. They are both wearing old tattered clothing. They are running away from men with dogs and horses. They tell Huckleberry that they have done nothing wrong and beg him to take them to safety. He takes them to the raft.

It is soon revealed that, although the two men were both fleeing from the same danger, they had never met before. The older man explains that he had been charging people to attend meetings at which he preached against the evils of alcohol. He had developed quite a following, until word got out that he was himself a secret drinker. The younger man had been selling a product that was supposed to remove tartar from teeth, which it did along with most of the teeth's enamel. It is clear that they are both con men who have both used a wide variety of scams and adopted a great many false identities to cheat people out of their money, although the younger man considers being an actor to be his true vocation. The two men agree to work together in future.

After a while, the younger man says that it is sad that someone of his origins should be reduced to his circumstances. He explains that he is the rightful heir to an English dukedom. His great-grandfather was the eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater and left England for America. While, he was in America, his father died and his younger brother claimed the title of duke that was not rightfully his. Jim feels vet sorry for the young man. The young man says that they can make him feel better by calling him "Bridgewater", "Your Grave", "My Lord" or "Your Lordship" and behaving as if they are his servants. Huckleberry and Jim do as the young man asks.

Some time later, the older man says that he is also of noble birth. He is King Louis XVII of France, believed to have died in prison as a child during the French Revolution. The young man does not believe him and says that he is too old to be Louis XVII. The older man says that his many troubles have prematurely aged him. He goes on to say that people should get down on one knee to speak to him and call him "Your Majesty" and that he should always be served his meals before everyone else. The younger man does not like this development. After a while, however, the older man tells the younger man that it is not his fault he is only a dike and that he hopes they can still be friends.

Huckleberry soon realizes that the men are both lying about their origins. He does not, however, see any harm in those lies. He continues to refer to the two men as "the duke" and "the king" and never tells Jim that they are frauds.

Adaptations

Lobby card for the 1939 American film Adventures of Huckleberry Finn starring Mickey Rooney.

Films based on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn include Huck and Tom (USA 1918), Huckleberry Finn (USA 1920), Huckleberry Finn (USA 1931), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (USA 1939), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (USA 1960), Hopelessly Lost (Russian: Совсем пропащий; Sovsem propashchiy, USSR 1973), Huckleberry Finn (USA 1974), The Adventures of Huck Finn (USA 1993), Tom and Huck (USA 1995), The Adventures of Huck Finn (German: Die Abenteuer des Huck Finn, Germany 2012), Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn (USA 2014) and Band of Robbers (USA 2015).

The American TV movie Huckleberry Finn, starring Ron Howard as the title character, was first shown on ABC on March 25, 1975. It won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Special.

The two-part American TV movie The Adventures of Con Sawyer and Hucklemary Finn, in which Twain's two famous characters are reimagined as girls, was made for the ABC Weekend Special series. It originally aired on ABC on February 23 and March 2, 1985. It stars Brandy Ward as "Huckle" Mary Finn and Drew Barrymore as Constance "Con" Sawyer.

Issue #19 of Classic Comics, first published in the United states in April 1944, includes an adaptation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The 26-episode TV series Huckleberry Finn and his Friends us based on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was co-produced by production companies from Canada and West Germany. The first episode originally aired on Canadian television on January 1, 1980. It stars the Canadian child actors Ian Tracey as Huckleberry Finn, who is also the series' narrator, and Sam Smyders as Tom Sawyer.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has twice been adapted as a Japanese anime series. The 26-episode series Huckleberry no Bōken (ハックルベリィの冒険) first aired on Fuji TV in 1978. The 26-episode series Huckleberry Finn Monogatari (ハックルベリー・フィン物語) was made for NHK in 1994.

The musical Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with book by William Hauptman and music and lyrics by Roger Miller, was first performed at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts in February 1984. It opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theater on April 25, 1983 and ran for 1,005 performances, closing on September 20, 1987. A Broadway revival opened at the American Airlines Theater on July 24, 2003 where it ran for sixty-seven performances and twenty-eight previews.

External links

• Quotations from ASdventures of Huckleberry Finn on Wikiquote.
• About.com's article: Censorship and Book Banning in America: Taking Stock by Melissa Kelly

Study guides

• SparkNotes on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on GrAdeSave.com

Electronic copies

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain on Wikisource
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is posted on the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain on Literature.org, or "The Online Literature Library"
• American Literature .com has Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Free public domain audiobook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from LibriVox.