Product Description

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) is Mark Twain's most popular book, and its hero is a national icon, celebrated as a distinctively American figure both at home and abroad. Tom Sawyer's bold spirit, winsome smile, and inventive solutions to the problems of everyday life in fictional St Petersburg - whether getting his friends to whitewash a fence for him, or escaping the demands of his vigilant Aunt Polly - have won him the hearts of generations.

The very success of Mark Twains's first novel has obscured its contradictions and the extent to which the author's response to contemporary cultural developments was a mixed one. Tom Sawyer is not only a deft comedy and a powerful celebration of childhood. It also reflects how Mark Twain was in the process of finding his distinctive voice, a voice with which he could express the conflicts he felt about coming of age in America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2499777 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 292 pages

Synopsis
The adventures and pranks of a mischievous boy growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth-century.

About the Author
Lee Clark Mitchell took his MA at the University of Sussex.

Customer Reviews

A classic story of boyhood
Whatever age you are, this book is sure to enjoyed by all. Some people will read it as a purely entertaining account of the childhood of an over-imaginative but loveable boy. Even today, Toms exploits reverberate with growing up, and the pure joy of being young and free. Sadly, in a world of growing regulation and overprotectiveness by parents, some of the adventures of Tom Sawyer will not sadly be enjoyed by todays average twelve-year-old, but are still sure to be understood and provide amusement to all young people.

It is difficult to compare this novel with Huckleberry Finn, and at times seems to be written by a different author. That said, it typifies much of Mark Twain, and the area of the US in which he grew up, without relating too much to the serious issues that lie just under the surface of Huck Finn.

Overall, it is a book that deserves to be read, preferably as a child, and by those [slightly older people] that remember growing up and getting up to some of Toms adventures as a child, and want to reminisce.

Best book I have ever read
This book is good friend, powerful good. Not a sing fault with it. Would recomend it over all other bood of the form "Adventures of..." Especialy "Adventurs of Popular Democracy" which I found distastful. Powerful distastful.

Great for kids and adult alike
I love this book. Whether you're a kid or an adult, this book will delight. It conjures up wonderful images of life in America at this time and you can't help but be enchanted by the adventures Tom gets himself involved in, as well as the childhood rituals (simple things like swapping toys and playing in woods!) he takes part in, that we all did and don't realise we miss until reading a book like this. This is a delightful book about childhood and adventure. Superb.