About the Author

Samuel Langhorne Clemans, known to most as Mark Twain, has been hailed by many as the father of American Literature. His two most famous works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), are considered two of the greatest American novels of all time.

Twain was born in Florida, Missouri on 30th November 1835. He grew up in the town of Hannibal on the Mississippi River, which would eventually serve as the basis for the place where Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn would live.

Twain grew up in Missouri at a time when it was a slave state. After the American Civil War broke out, he became a strong supporter of emancipation, and staunchly believed that the slave trade should be abolished.

Though he began as a comic writer, the tribulations he faced in his personal life perhaps served to turn him into a serious, even pessimistic, writer in his later years. He lost his wife and two daughters, and his ill-fated life never really allowed him to recover. Twain passed away in 1910, but he is still one of the best-loved writers around the world.

Reviews

This slender graphic adaptation of the Great American Novel preserves some of Twain’s language, most of his plot and a good sense of his sardonic take on human society. Mixing dialogue balloons with enough boxed narrative to evoke Huck’s distinctive voice, Mann packs in all of the major incidents and tones down at least some of the violence — the two con men are only “punished” here rather than specifically tarred and feathered, for instance. Similarly, though Huck gets viciously slapped around by his father in the pictures, in general there isn’t much other blood visible. . . . A good choice for readers who aren’t quite up to tackling the original, with perfunctory but well-meant notes on Twain’s life and the history of slavery in the United States. Co-published with its prequel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

— Kirkus Reviews

"I highly recommend Campfire’s comics. They do what they are intended to do and do it in  a way that excites kids about classic literature."

— Chris Wilson, The Graphic Classroom (a resource for teachers and librarians)

Gr 9 Up-All the highwater tales of Huck's journey are in this abridged versionÄhis faked death, the Jackson Island sojourn, the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud, the Duke and the King, and his reunion with Tom Sawyer. Along the way, we are treated to a sensual feast of the sights, smells, and rhythms of the Mississippi River and the humanistic education of Huck that culminates in his assisting in Jim's escape. The familiar adventures of Huck and runaway slave Jim's odyssey on a raft floating down the Mississippi have been well documented previously in audio format with noted versions read by Ed Begley, Will Wheaton (both from Dove), and the 1985 Grammy nominated Durkin Hayes production read by Dick Cavett. This version, beautifully read by actor Mike McShane, is a wonderful contribution to the recorded Twain canon. McShane handles multiple characterizations well, but excels in Huck's folksy narrative voice and Jim's understated power and dignity. School and public libraries should not miss this excellent rendition.-Barry X. Miller, Austin Public Library, TX Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

In this centenary year of the first American edition of Huckleberry Finn, Neider, who has worked long and well in the thickets of Twain scholarship (this is the ninth Twain volume he has edited), offers a most fitting tribute, for which he will be thanked in some quarters, damned in others. Neider's contribution is twofold: he has restored to its rightful place the great rafting chapter, which the author had lifted from the manuscript-in-progress and dropped into Life on the Mississippi, and he has abridged some of the childish larkiness in the portions in which Huck's friend Tom Sawyer intrudes into this novel. For decades, critics have lamented the absence of the ``missing'' chapter and deplored the jarring presence of Tom in episodes that slow the narrative, but not until now has anyone had the temerity to set matters right. In paring back the ``Tom'' chapters (which he fully documents in his lengthy, spirited introduction, with literal line counts of the excised material), Neider has achieved a brisker read. Though there may be some brickbats thrown at him for this ``sacrilege,'' few should object to the belated appearance of the transplanted rafting chapter in the novel in which it clearly belongs. October 25

This slender graphic adaptation of the Great American Novel preserves some of Twain's language, most of his plot and a good sense of his sardonic take on human society. Mixing dialogue balloons with enough boxed narrative to evoke Huck's distinctive voice, Mann packs in all of the major incidents and tones down at least some of the violence - the two con men are only "punished" here rather than specifically tarred and feathered, for instance. Similarly, though Huck gets viciously slapped around by his father in the pictures, in general there isn't much other blood visible. . . . A good choice for readers who aren't quite up to tackling the original, with perfunctory but well-meant notes on Twain's life and the history of slavery in the United States. Co-published with its prequel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

- Kirkus Reviews

"I highly recommend Campfire's comics. They do what they are intended to do and do it in a way that excites kids about classic literature."

- Chris Wilson, The Graphic Classroom (a resource for teachers and librarians)