The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Paperback]

John Seelye (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In 1970 John Seelye took the audacious step of revising Mark Twain's masterpiece... He restored the cuss words that kids and slaves would have used then, dealt with the latent homoeroticism that Leslie Fiedler noticed in the novel, altered its almost universally deplored ending, and otherwise unsmoothed its edges. The result was a racier, more adult Huck Finn... This new edition of Seelye's version includes a P.S. by Huck himself." -- Washington Post Book World

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; 2 edition (December 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252014324
• ISBN-13: 978-0252014321
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,222,848 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A ribald Huck Finn for the 'crikits', September 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Paperback)

Seelye's tongue-in-cheek rewriting of Twain's classic is a joy to read, in no small part because his Huck as engaging as Twain's. Seelye's project is largely critical discourse--as Huck's introduction to this edition makes clear--but of the best sort. In allowing "the real Huck" to write his own book, Seelye compels us to see the beauty of Twain's. Seelye's Huck cusses and fantasizes in ways that seem natural to readers today but that would have shocked readers in Twain's day. But if his characters are more realistic than Twain's, we see in Seelye's ending just why Twain was compelled to compose such a frustrating close for his novel. A book for all fans of Twain, or Huck. See Seelye's _The Kid_ for a different take on similar themes, Huck Finn and Jim in the Territory.

5.0 out of 5 stars Mark Twain would love this book!, July 28, 2010

By 

Richard Baker (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Paperback)

I first read this book in the 1980s and have been recommending it to friends ever since. It provides wonderful insight into Huckleberry Finn and is a delicious "Emperor's clothes" of some literary critics.