The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘Now he found out a new thing – namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.’An idyllic snapshot of a boy’s childhood along the banks of the Mississippi River, Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the author’s work that comes closest to his boyhood experiences of growing up in Hannibal in the 1840s.Mischievous and full of energy, Tom enjoys childish pranks and pastimes with his friends, Huck Finn, the town outcast and Joe Harper, his best friend. However, at the town graveyard, Huck and Tom witness a murder, carried out by local vagabond Injun Joe. They vow never to tell a soul about what they have seen and so begins their journey into adulthood as Tom wrestles with his own morality, guilt and anxiety.A ‘coming of age’ tale, it is through Tom’s adventures and relationships with others that he becomes more responsible and more aware of his own inner conflict. Through the central characters of Tom and Huck, Twain satirises the moral rigidity of society and adult hypocrisy, whilst at the same time giving a nostalgic portrayal of a young boy’s journey into adulthood.
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THE ADVENTURES
OF TOM SAWYER
Mark Twain
Harper Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Life & Times section by Gerard Cheshire
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from Collins English Dictionary
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Source ISBN: 9780007420117
Ebook Edition APRIL 2012 ISBN: 9780007480685 Version: 2015-04-15
Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual: he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.
The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story; that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.
Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try pleasantly to remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.
The Author
Hartford: 1876
âTOM!â
No answer.
âTom!â
No answer.
âWhatâs gone with that boy, I wonder? You Tom!â
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy, for they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for âstyle,â not service; she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids as well. She looked perplexed a moment and said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear, âWell, I lay if I get hold of you, Iâllââ
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
âI never did see the beat of that boy!â
She went to the open door and stood in it, and looked out among the tomato vines and âjimpsonâ weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance, and shouted:
âY-o-u-u Tom!â
There was a slight noise behind her, and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight. âThere! I might a thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?â
âNothing.â
âNothing! Look at your hands, and look at your mouth. What is that truck?â
âI donât know, aunt.â
âWell, I know. Itâs jam, thatâs what it is. Forty times Iâve said if you didnât let that jam alone Iâd skin you. Hand me that switch.â
The switch hovered in the air. The peril was desperate. âMy! Look behind you, aunt!â
The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger, and the lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it. His Aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.
âHang the boy, canât I never learn anything? Ainât he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Canât learn any old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But, my goodness, he never plays them alike two days, and how is a body to know whatâs coming? He âpears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, itâs all down again, and I canât hit him a lick. I ainât doing my duty by that boy, and thatâs the Lordâs truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the good book says. Iâm a-laying up sin and suffering for us both,
