Table of Contents

Introduction Literary Analysis: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Forms of Enslavement Unfit for Children: Censorship and Race Mark Twain's Mississippi Valley Slavery, Its Legacy and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Code of Honor Cultural Satire: Shakespeare, Home Decor, Sentimental Verse

Promotional Information

Interdisciplinary primary materials for classroom use and student research illuminate the historical and social issues of this controversial American classic.

About the Author

CLAUDIA DURST JOHNSON is Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where she chaired the Department of English for 12 years. She is series editor of the Greenwood Press Literature in Context series, which includes her works Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird (1994) and Understanding the Scarlet Letter (1995). She is also the author of To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries, (1994), The Productive Tension of Hawthorne's Art (1981), and American Actress: Perspectives on the Nineteenth Century (1984), and coauthor (with Vernon Johnson) of Memoirs of the Nineteenth-Century Theatre (Greenwood, 1982) and (with Henry Jacobs) An Annotated Bibliography of Shakespearean Burlesques, Parodies, and Travesties (1976), as well as numerous articles on American literature and theatre.

Reviews

?Although this guide opens with the expected literary analysis, it quickly expands its scope with discussions of censorship, racism, and life in Mark Twain's America. Each chapter is supported by documents and readings that add to the understanding of the novel's complex social and political issues....Johnson balances the 19th-century topics with contemporary counterparts whenever possible; for example, a 1995 interview with a former gang member complements the section on codes of honor in Twain's time. Sugggestions for projects, classroom discussions, and additional reading follow each chapter. A valuable resource for teachers and serious students.?-School Library Journal

?Few students or teachers would deny the enormous advantages of studying works of literature in their literary, historical and cultural contexts. Claudia Durst Johnson's casebook on Huckleberry Finn highlights both the greatness of this literary classic as well as the controversy which has surrounded it since its publication in 1884.... Johnson provides a solid overview of the novel's major themes and offers commentary and supplementary material on key contextual issues... The strength of this volume lies in the intelligent selection of primary source material.... This is a most useful volume in a very important series.?-Catholic Library World

"Few students or teachers would deny the enormous advantages of studying works of literature in their literary, historical and cultural contexts. Claudia Durst Johnson's casebook on Huckleberry Finn highlights both the greatness of this literary classic as well as the controversy which has surrounded it since its publication in 1884.... Johnson provides a solid overview of the novel's major themes and offers commentary and supplementary material on key contextual issues... The strength of this volume lies in the intelligent selection of primary source material.... This is a most useful volume in a very important series."-Catholic Library World

"Although this guide opens with the expected literary analysis, it quickly expands its scope with discussions of censorship, racism, and life in Mark Twain's America. Each chapter is supported by documents and readings that add to the understanding of the novel's complex social and political issues....Johnson balances the 19th-century topics with contemporary counterparts whenever possible; for example, a 1995 interview with a former gang member complements the section on codes of honor in Twain's time. Sugggestions for projects, classroom discussions, and additional reading follow each chapter. A valuable resource for teachers and serious students."-School Library Journal