Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

~ Mark Twain (Author), Emory Elliott (Editor)
Key Phrases: cracked his heels, runaway nigger, Huckleberry Finn, Aunt Sally, Tom Sawyer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Mark Twain's classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, tells the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.

Though some of the situations in Huckleberry Finn are funny in themselves (the cockeyed Shakespeare production in Chapter 21 leaps instantly to mind), this book's humor is found mostly in Huck's unique worldview and his way of expressing himself. Describing his brief sojourn with the Widow Douglas after she adopts him, Huck says: "After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people." Underlying Twain's good humor is a dark subcurrent of Antebellum cruelty and injustice that makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a frequently funny book with a serious message. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In this centenary year of the first American edition of Huckleberry Finn, Neider, who has worked long and well in the thickets of Twain scholarship (this is the ninth Twain volume he has edited), offers a most fitting tribute, for which he will be thanked in some quarters, damned in others. Neider's contribution is twofold: he has restored to its rightful place the great rafting chapter, which the author had lifted from the manuscript-in-progress and dropped into Life on the Mississippi, and he has abridged some of the childish larkiness in the portions in which Huck's friend Tom Sawyer intrudes into this novel. For decades, critics have lamented the absence of the "missing" chapter and deplored the jarring presence of Tom in episodes that slow the narrative, but not until now has anyone had the temerity to set matters right. In paring back the "Tom" chapters (which he fully documents in his lengthy, spirited introduction, with literal line counts of the excised material), Neider has achieved a brisker read. Though there may be some brickbats thrown at him for this "sacrilege," few should object to the belated appearance of the transplanted rafting chapter in the novel in which it clearly belongs. October 25
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199536554
• ISBN-13: 978-0199536559
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (569 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #72,028 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

338 of 357 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A controversial masterpiece, February 10, 2000

By	JLind555 - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Konemann Classics) (Hardcover)

Okay, we all know the plot, so there's no sense in rehashing it; but this book has generated a great deal of heat and very little light lately, it's been banned in some school districts and attacked as racist garbage, so this review will address the question: Is "Huckleberry Finn", in fact, a racist book?

The charge of racism stems from the liberal use of the N word in describing Jim. Some black parents and students have charged that the book is humiliating and demeaning to African-Americans and therefore is unfit to be taught in school. If there has been a racist backlash in the classroom, I think it is the fault of the readers rather than the book.

"Huckleberry Finn" is set in Missouri in the 1830's and it is true to its time. The narrator is a 13 year old, semi-literate boy who refers to blacks by the N-word because he has never heard them called anything else. He's been brought up to see blacks as slaves, as property, as something less than human. He gets to know Jim on their flight to freedom (Jim escaping slavery and Huck escaping his drunken, abusive father), and is transformed. Huck realizes that Jim is just as human as he is, a loving father who misses his children, a warm, sensitive, generous, compassionate individual. Huck's epiphany arrives when he has to make a decision whether or not to rescue Jim when he is captured and held for return to slavery. In the culture he was born into, stealing a slave is the lowest of crimes and the perpetrator is condemned to eternal damnation. By his decision to risk hell to save Jim, he saves his own soul. Huck has risen above his upbringing to see Jim as a friend, a man, and a fellow human being.

Another charge of racism is based on Twain's supposed stereotyping of Jim. As portrayed by Twain, Jim is hardly the ignorant, shuffling Uncle Tom that was so prevalent in "Gone With the Wind" (a book that abundantly deserves the charge of racism). Jim may be uneducated, but he is nobody's fool; and his dignity and nobility in the face of adversity is evident throughout the book.

So -- is "Huckleberry Finn" a racist book? No. It's of its time and for its time and ours as well, portraying a black man with sensitivity, dignity, and sympathy. If shallow, ignorant readers see Jim as a caricature and an object of derision, that's their problem. Hopefully they may mature enough in their lifetime to appreciate this book as one of the greatest classics of American literature.

And for those who might be wondering -- this reviewer is black.

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Audio CD of Classic, March 8, 2004

By	fra7299 "fra7299" (California, United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)

This review is from: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (The Classic Collection) (Audio CD)

Finally, a reading of a classic that is worth the money.

This story's narration covers a total of 9 Cds, and each disc has about 97 tracks (each track is only about 30 to 45 seconds). The good aspect of this is that it is quite easy to find your spot and, then pick up where you left off, if you happen to stop reading in the middle of a chapter. The negative aspect of short tracks is that it is difficult to skip around to particular chapters without "guessing" where a chapter might end (because there is no insert to tell which chapters are contained in each disc).

Overall, Dick Hill does a superb job of reading in this unabridged version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Hill's voice personifies Huck's narrative, and he keeps the Southern flavor of Twain's novel intact. What makes this reading particularly great is that Hill has a great ability to not only take on Huck, but other characters as well. Hill changes his voice for other characters such as Tom Sawyer, Jim, the Duke and the king, Pap and others. For this reason, this CD is a great tool for the reluctant readers in classes, and serves as a great supplement for the study of this novel.

I have found that buying audios to classic to be a gamble because you never really know what you are getting, but this is one of the best I've gotten.

79 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book not meant for everyone, but everyone should READ it., February 21, 2001

By	Justin Evans (West Wendover, Nevada United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

When I first read this book, I was so taken with it, that I read from chapter 18 through the end of the book in one night. I was up until 3:30 in the morning, reading ahead of my 11th grade assignment, and loving every minute along the way. later in college, when I studied the book more, closer, and with a more educated eye (whatever that means) my love for the book increased. Now, as a teacher myself, I look forward to having my students read this book and discussing it in class.

But now as for the title of my review:

I can't help feeling bad for people who think that this is not a good novel because "we don't talk like that anymore." Are we to abandon books that are no longer contemporary to ourselves? I also take issue with people who claim that this book is a racist tirade based upon the use of the word "nigger," or because the escape route Jim took was down the Mississippi instead of up river. While currently offensive, Mark Twain used the term as a literary fact that most, if not all young boys of the south spoke in such a manner. Once more, Jim explained why he was going South before he headed north. the simple fact is that if you are going to criticize a book, then you should read it. mark Twain said as much in his essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses."

From reading a number of the reviews of this book, I have come to the opinion that while many read the book, more than a few are refusing to give Twain credit for subtext and the use of allegory. One reviewer down the line says that the book is racist because Twain makes a young boy to be twice as smart as Jim. Upon closer reading, Twain is showing what Huck feels to be true. Huck only thinks that he is smarter. The reader should pick up on the fact that Twain writes Jim as an intuitive father figure for Huck, one who teaches a true morality as opposed to the morality of the South.

Simply put, you get what you put in to the reading of this book. If you think is is going to be a boring read because you "have to" read it for a summer reading list or school assignment, then that's what it will be. If you think it will be a difficult read because you don't want to try and read in dialects other than your own, it will be a hard read. If you are looking to justify the book as racist because of a single word that presentism doesn't excuse, then have at it. This book can be all of those things. However, this book also has the potential to enlighten the reader, give something wonderful to the reader, and teach about the human condition.