Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of, novel by Clemens, written under his pseudonym Mark Twain. A sequel to Tom Sawyer, it was begun in 1876 and published in 1884, omitting the chapter included in Life on the Mississippi. Although it carries on the picaresque story of the characters in Tom Sawyer, the sequel is a more accomplished and a more serious work of art as well as a keener realistic portrayal of regional character and frontier experience on the Mississippi.

Narrated by Huck, the sequel begins with its unschooled hero under the motherly protection of the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. When his blackguard father appears to demand the boy's fortune, Huck tricks him by transferring the money to Judge Thatcher, but his father kidnaps him and imprisons him in a lonely cabin. During one of the old man's drunken spells, Huck escapes to Jackson's Island, where he meets Miss Watson's runaway slave, Jim. They start down the river on a raft, but, after several adventures, the raft is hit by a steamboat and the two are separated. Huck swims ashore, and is sheltered by the Grangerford family, whose feud with the Shepherdsons causes bloodshed. The boy discovers Jim, and they set out again on the raft, giving refuge to the “Duke of Bridgewater,” itinerant printer and fraud, and the “Dauphin,” “Louis XVII of France,” actor, evangelist, and temperance faker. At stopping places, the “King” lectures as a reformed pirate, and they present, as “Kean” and “Garrick,” dramatic performances culminating in the fraudulent exhibition of the “Royal Nonesuch.” Huck witnesses the murder of a harmless drunkard by an Arkansas aristocrat, whose contempt discourages a mob of would‐be lynchers. The rogues learn of the death of Peter Wilks and claim legacies as his brothers. Huck interferes in behalf of the three daughters, and the scheme is foiled by the arrival of the real brothers. Then he discovers that the “King” has sold Jim to Mrs. Phelps, Tom Sawyer's Aunt Sally, and at the Phelps farm he impersonates Tom in an attempt to rescue Jim. When Tom arrives, he masquerades as his brother Sid, and concocts a fantastic scheme to free Jim. In the “mixed‐up and splendid rescue,” Tom is accidentally shot, and the slave is recaptured. While Tom is recuperating, he reveals that Miss Watson has died, setting Jim free in her will, and that the rescue was necessary only because he “wanted the adventure of it.” It is also disclosed that Huck's fortune is safe, since his father is dead, but he concludes: “I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.”