The Dramatic Unity Of Huckleberry Finn

The author addresses widespread criticism of the novel's ending, employing a structuralist approach to argue that the seemingly discordant ending of 'Huckleberry Finn' is in fact Mark Twain's deliberate gesture of tragic recognition of an American and a human predicament.

Much about Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is ageless, yet its author was completely immersed in the age in which he wrote. Refiguring “Huckleberry Finn” looks at ways that contemporary American culture and history influenced the formation of Mark Twain’s masterwork. It also shows how the novel reflects Twain’s deep investment in what Carl F. Wieck calls “an open-minded, unbiased perception of the wellsprings of the American spirit.” Clearly, Twain knew the Mississippi River and its people well. With Frederick Douglass, William Dean Howells, Ulysses S. Grant, and John Hay (Abraham Lincoln’s personal secretary) among his friends, Twain also knew America. That understanding, Wieck shows us, is richly evident in Huckleberry Finn by the ways Twain explored themes of justice, rights, knowledge, and truth; engaged with the ideas of Douglass, Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson; and expressed concern over the public discourse on race and equality. In addition, in discussions that range from number play in the novel to the symbolic potential of the Mississippi’s awesome, one-way flow, Wieck looks closely at Twain’s storytelling craft. Filled with new and challenging insights, Refiguring “Huckleberry Finn” reintroduces us to one of our greatest novels and one of our finest novelists.

Originally published in 1987. Popular from its first publication, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remains at the centre of heated controversy. Is it an adult novel or juvenile fiction? Is Huck a new model hero from the West or just another amoral prankster? Harold Beaver reconciles these divergent views into a comprehensive and lively critical account of the novel and the complex debates which surround it.

Victor Doyno offers a new, accessible, and innovative approach to America's favorite novel. Doyno presents new material from the revised manuscript of Huckleberry Finn and also draws on Samuel Clemens's unpublished family journal, his correspondence, and his concerns about the lack of international copyright law.

"A GOLD MINE FOR SCHOLARS." *Deidre Carmody The New York Times Now, in this extraordinary literary uncovering, the original first half of Mark Twain's American masterpiece is available for the first time ever to a general readership. Lost for more than a century, the passages reinstated in this edition reveal a novel even more controversial than the version Twain published in 1885 and provide an invaluable insight into his creative process. A breakthrough of unparalleled impact, this comprehensive edition of an American classic is the final rebuttal in the tireless debate of "what Twain really meant." "[A] MASTERLY RESTORATION . . . I wish this new version of Huckleberry Finn would be distributed to all the nation's classrooms as the basic text and lead to a badly needed reconsideration of the questions it raises." *James A. McPherson Chicago Tribune "THOUGHTFULLY RESPECTS TWAIN'S INTENTIONS." *Gary Lee Stonum The Cleveland Plain Dealer With a Foreword and Addendum by Victor Doyno

A beautiful hardcover repackaging of this timeless classic from the publishers of the Autobiography of Mark Twain and in partnership with the Mark Twain Project. This definitive edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the only version of Mark Twain’s masterpiece based on his complete manuscript, including the 663 pages found in a Los Angeles attic in 1990. Prepared by the Mark Twain Papers, the official archive of Sam Clemens’s papers at the University of California, Berkeley, this volume features the gorgeous original illustrations that Twain commissioned from Edward Windsor Kemble and John Harley and also includes historical notes, a glossary, maps, selected manuscript pages, and even a gallery of letters, advertisements, and playbills from Twain’s first “book tour” to promote the original publication—everything the discerning reader needs to enjoy this classic of American literature again and again.

Tracks the genesis and evolution of Twain's reputation as a writer, revealing how and why the writer has been under fire since the advent of his career.

This 125th Anniversary edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is expanded with updated notes and references and a selection of original documents—letters, advertisements, playbills—some never before published, from Twain's first "book tour" to promote its original publication. This is the only edition of Twain's masterpiece based on his complete manuscript, including the 663 pages found in a Los Angeles attic in 1990. It includes all of the illustrations commissioned by Mark Twain, historical notes, a glossary, maps, and selected manuscripts.

Something is not right in the world of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The unease is less evident to Tom, the manipulator, than to the socially marginal Huck. The trouble is most dramatically revealed when Huck, whose "sivilized" Christian conscience is developing, faces the choice between betraying his black friend Jim--which he believes is his moral duty--and letting him escape, as his heart tells him to do. "Bad faith" is Forrest Robinson's name for the dissonance between what we profess to believe, how we act, and how we interpret our own behavior. There is bad faith in the small hypocrisies of daily living, but Robinson has a much graver issue in mind--namely slavery, which persisted for nearly a century in a Christian republic founded on ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. Huck, living on the fringes of small-town society, recognizes Jim's humanity and understands the desperateness of his plight. Yet Huck is white, a member of the dominant class; he is at once influenced and bewildered by the contradictions of bad faith in the minds of his fully acculturated contemporaries. Robinson stresses that "bad faith" is more than a theme with Mark Twain; his bleak view of man's social nature (however humorously expressed), his nostalgia, his ambivalence about the South, his complex relationship to his audience, can all be traced back to an awareness of the deceits at the core of his culture--and he is not himself immune. This deeply perceptive book will be of interest to students of American literature and history and to anyone concerned with moral issues.

A critical examination of Mark Twain's character of Huckleberry Finn.