The adventures of a mischievous young boy and his friends growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century.

Contains the complete text of "Huckleberry Finn" and eighteen essays that address three major controversies that surround the novel, including sexual orientation, Mark Twain's ending, and racism.

In Robert Coover's Huck Out West, also "wrote by Huck," the boys escape "sivilization" and "light out for the Territory, riding for the famous but short-lived Pony Express, then working as scouts for both sides in the war. They are suddenly separated when Tom decides he'd rather own civilization than leave it, returning east with his new wife, Becky Thatcher, to learn the law from her father. Huck, abandoned and "dreadful lonely," hires himself out...

"Huck Finn and Jim float on their raft across a continuum of shifting seasons, feasting on a limitless supply of fish and stolen provisions, propelled by the currents of the mighty Mississippi from one adventure to the next. Launched into existence by Mark Twain in 1835, they have now been transported by Norman Lock through three vital, violent, and transformative centuries of American history. As time unfurls on the river's banks, they witness decisive...