Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians: And Other Unfinished Stories

Mark Twain, Walter Blair, Richard A. Watson

University of California Press, 2011 - Fiction - 392 pages

o Includes the authoritative texts for eleven pieces written between 1868 and 1902

o Publishes, for the first time, the complete text of "Villagers of 1840-3," Mark Twain's astounding feat of memory

o Features a biographical directory and notes that reflect extensive new research on Mark Twain's early life in Missouri



Throughout his career, Mark Twain frequently turned for inspiration to memories of his youth in the Mississippi River town of Hannibal, Missouri. What has come to be known as the Matter of Hannibal inspired two of his most famous books, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and provided the basis for the eleven pieces reprinted here. Most of these selections (eight of them fiction and three of them autobiographical) were never completed, and all were left unpublished. Written between 1868 and 1902, they include a diverse assortment of adventures, satires, and reminiscences in which the characters of his own childhood and of his best-loved fiction, particularly Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, come alive again. The autobiographical recollections culminate in an astounding feat of memory titled "Villagers of 1840-3" in which the author, writing for himself alone at the age of sixty-one, recalls with humor and pathos the characters of some one hundred and fifty people from his childhood. Accompanied by notes that reflect extensive new research on Mark Twain's early life in Missouri, the selections in this volume offer a revealing view of Mark Twain's varied and repeated attempts to give literary expression to the Matter of Hannibal.

Contents

• TuppervilleDobbsville: 24
• Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians: 33
• Jane Lampton Clemens: 82
• Villagers of 18403: 93
• Hellfire Hotchkiss: 109
• Tom Sawyers Conspiracy: 134
• Schoolhouse Hill: 214
• 2220: 265
• 82: 276
• 93: 283
• 134: 290
• REFERENCES: 353
• NOTE ON THE TEXT: 371

About the author

Mark Twain was born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He worked as a printer, and then became a steamboat pilot. He traveled throughout the West, writing humorous sketches for newspapers. In 1865, he wrote the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which was very well received. He then began a career as a humorous travel writer and lecturer, publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869, Roughing It in 1872, and, Gilded Age in 1873, which was co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner. His best-known works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mississippi Writing: Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians: And Other Unfinished Stories; Volume 7 of Mark Twain Library, Mark Twain
• Authors: Mark Twain, Walter Blair, Richard A. Watson
• Editors: Walter Blair, Robert Hirst
• Contributors: Dahlia Armon, Walter Blair
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: University of California Press, 2011
• ISBN: 0520271505, 9780520271500
• Length: 392 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Humorous / General; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Westerns; Literary Collections / General; Literary Criticism / American / General; Literary Criticism / General