The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
ISBN: 9781402714603
Publication Date: 7 July 2005

"Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life."

So starts Mark Twain's classic tale about a boy's life in a small town on the Mississippi, which has become an all-time favorite both in America and around the world.

Tom Sawyer's mischievous and by now famous exploits venturing into a nighttime graveyard with his friend Huck Finn, getting lost in a bat cave, tricking his friends into whitewashing a fence make thrilling reading for all ages. Behind the escapades, though, are darker themes, as young Tom learns some difficult lessons about the often hypocritical rules that govern adult society.

About the Author

Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910). He was born and brought up in the American state of Missouri and, because of his father's death, he left school to earn his living when he was only twelve. He was a great adventurer and travelled round America as a printer; prospected for gold and set off for South America to earn his fortune. He returned to become a steam-boat pilot on the Mississippi River, close to where he had grown up. The Civil War put an end to steam-boating and Clemens briefly joined the Confederate army - although the rest of his family were Unionists! He had already tried his hand at newspaper reporting and now became a successful journalist.

He started to use the alias Mark Twain during the Civil War and it was under this pen name that he became a famous travel writer. He took the name from his steam-boat days - it was the river pilots' cry to let their men know that the water was two fathoms deep.

Mark Twain was always nostalgic about his childhood and in 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published, based on his own experiences. The...