Read this if you…
- want the classic American boyhood novel
- want a short fun romp - lots of humor , not overly moralistic
- want to see if you agree its better than Huckleberry Finn
Skip this if you…
- want a serious book
- don't like child protagonists
The lineage through The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer built on it. - Tom's whole imagination is Quixote's: a head full of romances, the dull world rewritten as grand adventure - Twain knew exactly what he was doing — he praised "the good work done by Cervantes" and gave Tom a Sancho Panza in Huck - Read *Don Quixote* first and Tom's pirate gangs and treasure quests read as deliberate parody, the chivalric joke retooled for an American boyhood
Depicted in Art
Tom Sawyer stands in profile against a riverbank, fishing pole over his shoulder, straw hat tipped back.
True Williams, 1876
Tom, Huck, and Joe Harper stand on the wooded shore of Jackson's Island in their pirate getups, looking out over the Mississippi.
True Williams, 1876
Injun Joe stares straight ahead, knife at his hip, in a half-portrait pose.
True Williams, 1876
Bronze of Tom and Huck striding side by side, fishing pole over Tom's shoulder, in front of a stone retaining wall.
Frederick C. Hibbard, 1926
Tom and Huck kneel by an open box of gold coins in the cave, the candle catching every reflection.
True Williams, 1876
Injun Joe stands over Dr. Robinson's body with the knife in his hand while Muff Potter lies stunned beside him.
True Williams, 1876
Recommended Editions
Penguin Classics
2006
R. Kent Rasmussen's Penguin reads cleanly and his introduction on Twain's Hannibal childhood gets at how strange the book's nostalgia actually is. The easy entry point.
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Notable Quotes
He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
Screen & Stage
Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)
- Walt Disney, filmmaker & founder of The Walt Disney Company, 1901–1966: Designed Tom Sawyer Island himself — the one Disneyland attraction he created — as a tribute to the book.
- William Faulkner, novelist & Nobel laureate, 1897–1962: "Mark Twain was the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs."
- Norman Rockwell, American illustrator & painter, 1894–1978: "The longer I worked at the task, the more in love with the different personalities I became."
- George Bernard Shaw, playwright & Nobel laureate, 1856–1950: "The future historian of America will find your works as indispensable as Voltaire's political tracts."
- Ernest Hemingway, novelist & Nobel laureate, 1899–1961: Traced all modern American literature back to Twain — though to Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer's sequel, not this book.
- Nick Offerman, actor, woodworker, author, 1969–: "Reading Mark Twain aloud felt powerfully akin to Tom Sawyer hoodwinking other boys into paying for the privilege of whitewashing a fence."
- Richard Branson, entrepreneur, Virgin Group founder, 1950–: Included on his list of 70 essential reads on World Book Day.
More by Mark Twain
- 66The Adventures of Tom Sawyer1876Mark TwainBreezy·Short·231 pagesInfluence49Popularity89The Age of the NovelAdventureEnglish
- 114The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn1884Mark TwainBreezy·Medium·327 pagesInfluence50Popularity96The Age of the NovelAdventureEnglish
- 114The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnMark Twain1884The Age of the NovelBreezyMedium3275096AdventureEnglish