Novel
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain · 1876
Opening lines
“TOM!”
No answer.
“What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!”
No answer.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
On the Mississippi, around 1840. A boy raised by his aunt plays truant, is sentenced to whitewash a fence, and persuades the other children to pay for the privilege of doing it in his place. He falls for a newcomer, finds himself one night in the graveyard, a witness to a murder of which an innocent man is accused the next day, then goes off to play pirate on an island with two friends while the town believes them drowned.
Context
The book transposes the town of Hannibal; the author says he composed his hero from three boys he had known. Written between 1872 and 1875, partly in an office at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, it first appeared in London in June 1876; a pirate edition from Toronto preceded the American edition, sold by subscription from December, by several months, and only about twenty-four thousand copies went out in the first year. The tide turned: of all his titles, it was the one that sold best in his lifetime. The sequel, entrusted to the hero's friend, appeared in 1884 and 1885.
Who it is for
A short novel, often shelved as children's literature, which it is only half. Its sequel, entrusted to the hero's companion, is more ambitious and is read afterwards.
Prizes and reception
His best-selling title in his lifetime, at first snubbed, then adapted dozens of times for the screen and elsewhere.
Sources for this page 7
The pages consulted to check this page.