Book summary

Twain spent seven years writing this classic novel--the book Hemingway claimed is the basis for all American fiction. The story of Huck's and Jim's quest for freedom on a raft on the Mississippi provides a panoramic view of Southern society, which Twain saw as beset by greed, violence, and coldhearted brutality. At the end, Huck definitively abandons the conventional cant which he has been raised to believe in when he makes the decision to go to hell rather than betray his friend Jim and send him back to slavery. The book has been banned from time to time, beginning with its publication when it was deemed too subversive for children, until in the late 20th century when, despite its sympathetic attitude toward blacks and is violent denunciation of slavery, it has been branded racist largely because Twain's use of dialect and "offensive" language.

Media reviews

"'Huckleberry Finn' is, among other things, a complex, serious book. And it should be taught as such--to children old enough to think and read with imagination. The supposedly racially insensitive tale, with its repeated use of the word 'nigger,' is the most devastating portrait of American white trash and white-trash racism that has ever been written. 'Huck Finn' savages racism as thoroughly as any document in American history...After 'Huckleberry Finn' was published in 1885, the Public Library in Concord, Massachusetts, banned the book. As the 'Boston Transcript' reported: 'One member of the committee says that, while he does not wish to call it immoral, he thinks it contains but little humor, and that of a very coarse type. He regards it as the veriest trash. The librarian and the other members of the committee entertain similar views, characterizing it as rough, coarse, and inelegant.'"