The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Introduction

Tom Sawyer, the protagonist of Mark Twain's most autobiographical novel was his first novel written without a collaborator. As presented by Mark Twain, Tom is much more complex. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer are one of Clemens's best-known and best-selling books—"a hymn," in the author's words, "put, into prose form to give it worldly air." It is a seminal text of American literature in general and children's literature in particular. The character of Tom Sawyer is regarded as a symbol of American boyhood. Tom Sawyer arrived at a momentous time in American history. Its first edition was issued in England on June 9, 1876. Sixteen days later, Indians annihilated George Armstrong Custer's Seventh Cavalry at Little Big Horn. Nine days after that, America celebrated the centennial of its birth. Publication of Tom Sawyer was little noticed in the United States at the time. The book has, however, proved to be one of the most enduring works in American literature.

By the time Clemens died, it had been his top-selling book. It has been in print continuously, since 1876, and has outsold all other Clemens works. It has been issued in hundreds of editions in at least three dozen languages. Mark Twain was born in 1835 and died in 1910. For over a century, America's most beloved author had been entertaining, instructing, and humorously fining readers around the world. He was known for his writing and speaking. He was not financially well enough. Though he earned well, but he spent mostly on various ventures. He was called the greatest American humorist of his age. The aim of this paper is to describe Mark Twain's writing style. The paper aims to describe the novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (Horn 1999, 17).

The novel is 71,500 words in length and is divided into 35 chapters, plus a brief epilogue. Its plot follows five distinct story lines, which overlap considerably. The loosest story line, beginning in chapter 1, concerns Tom's relationship with his family and his school and church activities. A secondary story line follows Tom's infatuation with Becky Thatcher, whom he meets in chapter 3. In a third story line, an episode contained within chapters 13-17 has Tom, Huck Finn, and Joe Harper spend a week playing pirates on Jackson's Island. A fourth story line begins in chapter 9, when Tom and Huck see Injun Joe murder a man in the graveyard. After the Jackson's Island interlude, this story line culminates with the trial of Muff Potter in chapter 23, when Injun Joe is revealed as the true murderer and disappears. The final and most intricate story line ties the search for Injun Joe, Tom, and Huck's quest for treasure, and Tom and Becky's adventure in a cave.

Clemens's original manuscript of Tom Sawyer, extending to 876 handwritten pages, is held by Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In 1982, the university's library published it as a two-volume photo-facsimile edition. In 1980, the Mark Twain Project published the first ...