The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

This classic novel of childhood is set in fictional St. Petersburg, a town based on Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Twain's recounting of Tom Sawyer's many escapades is by turns nostalgic, satiric, wise, and hilarious. While this novel is often considered mainly as the precursor to Twain's great work The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is abundantly worth considering for its own deft and loving transformation of autobiography into fiction. In addition to the full text of the novel based on the first American edition, complete with a selection of the original illustrations by True Williams, this Broadview edition provides a wide range of appendices that place the novel in the context of 1840s rural America as well as 1870s literary America. These include materials on the composition and marketing of Tom Sawyer, selections from other "boy books" of the period, and historical documents relating to temperance, children's literature, and schools.

Acknowledgements

10

(1)

Introduction

11

(27)

Mark Twain: A Brief Chronology

38

(3)

A Note on the Text and Illustrations

41

(2)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

43

(199)

Appendix A: Composition, Marketing, and Reviews of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

1. Composition

242

(9)

a. From Twain's "Boy's Manuscript" (c. 1870)

242

(2)

b. From "Unpublished Chapters from the Autobiography of Mark Twain," Harper's Monthly Magazine (August 1922)

244

(1)

c. The Tom Sawyer manuscript

245

(3)

d. Twain's Correspondence with William Dean Howells (1875-76)

248

(3)

2. Marketing: Advertisement of Subscription Books (1876)

251

(3)

3 Contemporary Reviews

254

(5)

a. William Dean Howells, Atlantic Monthly (May 1876)

254

(2)

b. Anonymous, NewYork World (1 January 1877)

256

(1)

c. Anonymous, NewYork Times (13 January 1877)

256

(3)

Appendix B: Twain's Memories of Hannibal

1. Letter to Will Bowen (6 February 1870)

259

(2)

2. Hannibal in 1848

261

(1)

3. From Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883)

262

(3)

4. From Twain, "Chapters from My Autobiography," North American Review (2 November 1906)

265

(2)

5. From Twain, "Villagers of 1840-43" (1897)

267

(3)

6. Slavery in Hannibal

270

(3)

a. From Twain, "Chapters from My Autobiography," North American Review (1 March 1907)

270

(2)

b. Advertisement for Slaves (1848)

272

(1)

Appendix C: Bad Boys and Boy Books

1. Bad Boys

273

(4)

a. From B.P. Shillaber, Mrs. Partington's Knitting Work, and what was done by her plaguy boy Ike (1880)

273

(2)

b. From Twain, "The Story of the Bad Little Boy" (1865)

275

(2)

2. Boy Books

277

(10)

a. From Thomas Bailey Aldrich, The Story of a Bad Boy (1869)

277

(5)

b. From Charles Dudley Warner, Being a Boy (1877)

282

(2)

c. From William Dean Howells, A Boy's Town (1890)

284

(3)

Appendix D: A Small-Town American Childhood in the 1840's

1. School

287

(3)

a. From McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book (1846)

287

(2)

b. From the Friends Infant School (1838)

289

(1)

2. Sunday School

290

(1)

a. From "The Sunday-School Child" (1845)

290

(1)

b. From "The glass of whiskey" (1845)

291

(1)

3. The Temperance Movement: Announcement in the Hannibal Gazette (17 June 1846)

291

(1)

4. Games: From The Boy's Story Book for Winter Evenings (1838)

292

(1)

5. The Circus: Advertisement in the Hannibal Gazette (October 1847)

293

(3)

6. The Minstrel Show

296

(1)

a. Song from "Bone Squash Diavolo" (1835)

296

(1)

b. Dialogue, "Mosquitoes" (1902)

296

(1)

7. Reading

297

(14)

a. Lawrence Lovechild, "The Deceitful Little Boy" (1840)

297

(1)

b. From Samuel Griswold Goodrich ("Peter Parley"), "Bill Vacant and Henry Hawkseye," Robert Merry's Annual, for all seasons (1840)

298

(1)

c. From Jacob Abbott, Rollo Learning to Read (1855)

299

(2)

d. From Stephen Percy, Robin Hood and His Merry Foresters (1845)

301

(5)

e. From Ned Buntline, The Black Avenger, Story of the Spanish Main, The Weekly Novelette (1859)

306

(5)

Select Bibliography

311

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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials