The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huckleberry Finn is one of the great American novels, brilliantly written by Mark Twain. Huck had a terrible childhood and a drunken father and when he runs away, he is truly alone in the world. The relationship between him and the escaped slave, Jim, is just marvellous—Shirley Hughes, Sunday TelegraphFinn is a brilliantly imagined mixture of wilyness and innocence—GuardianAll modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn…There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since—Ernest HemingwayFor a hundred years, the argument that this novel is has been identified, reidentified, examined, waged and advanced. What it cannot be is dismissed. It is classic literature, which is to say it heaves, manifests and lasts.—Toni Morrison, GuardianSo what makes these different to any other set of classics? In a moment of inspiration Random House had the bright idea of actually asking Key stage 2 children what extra ingredients they could add to make children want to read. And does it work? Well, put it this way…my 13-year-old daughter announced that she had to read a book over the summer holiday and, without any prompting, spotted The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas…and proceeded to read it! Now, if you knew my 13-year-old daughter, you would realise that this is quite remarkable. She reads texts, blogs and tags by the thousand - but this is the first book she has read since going to high school, so all hail Vintage Classics!—National Association for the Teaching of English

Mark Twain’s real name was Sam Clemens. He was born in 1835 in a small town on the Mississippi River and was one of seven children.

At the age of eight, he began smoking cigars, and at nine, he stowed away on a steamboat. He left school at 11 and worked in various jobs, including a grocery store, a bookstore, a blacksmith’s shop, and a newspaper. At the newspaper, he was allowed to write his own stories, not all of which were truthful.

He then worked on a steamboat, where he acquired the pseudonym ‘Mark Twain’ from the call used by the pilot to signal safe waters. Eventually, he returned to journalism, traveled the world, and began writing novels that achieved great popularity. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are his most well-known works.

He invested the income from his writing into business ventures and eccentric inventions, such as a clamp to prevent babies from kicking off their blankets, a new board game, and a hand grenade filled with extinguishing liquid for fires.

With his distinctive shock of white hair and signature white suit, Mark Twain became the most famous American writer globally. He passed away in 1910.

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