The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain

In this enduring and internationally popular novel, Mark combines social satire and dime-novel sensation with a rhapsody on boyhood and on America’s pre-industrial past. Tom Sawyer is resilient, enterprising, and vainglorious. In a series of adventures along the banks of the Mississippi, he usually manages to come out on top. From petty triumphs over his friends and over his long-suffering Aunt Polly, to his intervention in a murder trial, Tom engages readers of all ages. He has long been a defining figure in the American cultural imagination.

Alongside the charm and the excitement, Twain raises serious questions about community, race, and the past. Above all, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer invites discussion of the way in which childhood is invoked to counter the uncomfortable truths of the adult world.

This book is paperback and is recommended reading for Hillsdale’s free online course, “Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Selected Short Stories.”