A "huckleberry" was 19th-century slang for a person of no importance.			Released in 1884 by New York's Charles L. Webster And Co. The first edition had 366 pages and 175 illustrations.
Considered Mark Twain's greatest work; Ernest Hemingway, in The Green Hills of Africa, said, "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....There was nothing before. There had been nothing as good since."				Entirely written in the first-person point of view, in the vernacular tounge of an uneducated boy living on the Mississippi River during the 1840s.
Twain was unaware that this book would be regarded as his masterpiece; he regarded Joan of Arc and The Prince and the Pauper as better books.			Twain wrote the book off and on over a period of about eight years, from 1876-1884; he used a portion of the manuscript known as the Raft Chapter in Life on the Mississippi.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking-thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time, in the day, and in the nighttime, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating alond, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"-and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

In 1991, a long-lost handwritten portion of Twain's original manuscript was found in Buffalo, N.Y.; it added several deleted passages to the book, and provided enormous insight into the creation process of the book.			First banned in 1885 by the Concord, Mass., Library Board, the book has created controversy ever since over what has been termed the racist character of the language — in particluar, the heavy use of the word "nigger"; it has been banned by schools and libraries throughout the U.S. since its inception.
The first dramatic adaptation was a musical in 1902; the first filmed account was a silent film in 1920; there have been many filmed and staged versions of the book, with Mickey Rooney, Ron Howard, and Elijah Wood taking a turn as Huck.				Jim, the slave, was based on Uncle Daniel, a slave owned by Clemens' Uncle John Quarles; during the boyhood summers that Clemens spent at his uncle's house, he became friendly with Daniel.
Huck was based on Clemens' boyhood acquaintance Tom Blankenship; Tom was from a poor Hannibal family of 10, with a drunken father similar to Pap Finn; he was dirty, uneducated, and lived without authority; Twain characterized him as "the only really independent person-boy or man-in the community, and by consequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy...."

"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there, from Ohio; a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane-the awfulest old grey-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? they said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could vote, when he was as home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote, myself, if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin. Them's the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me-I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger-why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold?-that's what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? They said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet. There, now-that's a specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take ahold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and-"

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about the adventures faced by Huck and Jim, a runaway slave, as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft. The book opens shortly after the final scenes of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The opening chapters recapture the playful, lighthearted spirit of Tom Sawyer, with Tom, Huck, Joe Harper, and other boys forming a gang of robbers.

The narrative takes a darker tone with the return of Pap Finn, Huck's drunken father. A judge rejects Judge Thatcher and the Widow Douglas' attempt to be appointed Huck's legal guardian, and Pap goes on a drinking binge to celebrate. Now Huck's entire fortune will be in his hands. Pap removes Huck to a deserted cabin three miles up-river, to keep a close eye on him. Huck fakes his own death, and escapes in a canoe to Jackson's Island.

On his third day on the island, Huck stumbles upon Jim, whom he knows from Hannibal. It turns out that Jim has run away from his master, to seek his freedom. After several weeks, Huck gets word that the island is about to be searched for Jim. The two pack up some things, and head down the river on a raft. Their plan is to head for Cairo, Illinois, where they will take a steamboat up the Ohio River to the free states.

Shortly afterward, they discover that they have passed the small town of Cairo in the fog, so the two continue their journey downriver. After numerous experiences, they come upon two swindlers, known as the King and Duke. The King and the Duke stage a "Shakesperean Revival" in some of the towns the four come upon, and they take in over $400. The King and the Duke decide to impersonate the brothers of the deceased Peter Wilks in order to reap his inheritance; this escapade eventually backfires.

The four travellers take to their raft and continue the journey down the Mississippi. At this point, Huck grapples with his guilt over helping a slave escape from his master. He begins to write a letter to Miss Watson, Jim's owner, but tears it up after recalling how Jim has become his good friend. He decides to make sure that Jim achieves his freedom. Little does he know that the King has sold Jim for $40 behind Huck's back.

Huck discovers that Jim has been sold to a family named Phelps, and goes to their farm, where he is mistaken for their relative Tom. It turns out that Tom is Huck's friend Tom Sawyer. On the road to the Phelps', Huck meets Tom and explains that he wants to help Jim get his freedom. Tom agrees to take part in this plan. At the Phelps', Tom introduces himself as Sid Sawyer, his half-brother.

Jim is being imprisoned in a cabin on the farm. Tom and Huck dig their way into the cabin, and smuggle in food and other things. At the right moment, the three escape from the farm and head to the raft. Tom is hit by a bullet during the escape, and a doctor is found to treat him. The next day, Huck returns to the Phelps, and Tom and Jim, with his hands tied behind his back, are soon also brought to the farm.

It comes out at the end that Jim has been a free man for two months already, when his owner, Miss Watson, died and freed him in her will. Tom knew about his freedom, but went through the entire scheme for the "adventure of it." It also comes out that Pap Finn has been murdered. At the end of the book, Huck doesn't want to be adopted by Tom's Aunt Sally, and decides to "light out for the Territories ahead of the rest." Twain's intended irony is that these Territories, soon after the events of the book, were the scene of great bloodshed over the issue of whether or not to outlaw slavery in their society.