Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

In recent years, neither the persistent effort to "clean up" the racial epithets in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn nor its consistent use in the classroom has diminished, highlighting the novel’s wide-ranging influence and its continued importance in American society. An incomparable adventure story, it is a vignette of a turbulent yet hopeful epoch in American history, defining the experience of a nation in voices often satirical but always authentic.

Of all the contenders for the title of The Great American Novel, none has a better claim than Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Written against the backdrop of the nation's desire to "light out" and expand into the promised future of the West, the novel stands as a reminder of the difficulty of escaping inherited traditions. Huck and Jim's voyage portrays a turbulent yet hopeful epoch in American history, defining the experience of a nation in voices often satirical but always authentic. By turns praised, derided, banned, and celebrated, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain's enduring masterpiece, an incomparable adventure story, and a classic work of American humor.