Recounts the adventures of a young boy and an escaped slave as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft.

Examines Mark Twain's writing of Huckleberry Finn, calling into question commonly held interpretations of the work on the subjects of youth, youth culture, and race relations, based on research into the social preoccupations of the era in which it was written.

In Its Distrust Of Too Much Civilisation And Its Concern With The Way Language Turns Dreamy And Corrupt When Divorced From The Real Condition Of Life, Huckleberry Finn Echoed Some Of The Central Concerns Of Life Today. Like All Great Works Of Fiction Where No Story Is Told As If It Is The Only One, Huck Finn Is Open-Ended, The 'Unfinished Story' Where The True Meaning Is Left To The Conscience And Imagination Of Each Reader.

"Seelye's version seems even funnier than the original, and also more moving, since Seelye's Huck Finn is even less sentimental about life and Tom Sawyer than Twain's Huck Finn. He is also more perceptive about black people than the original." -- Hughes Rudd, CBS News "Seelye has stitched together a whale of a book. Without reference to Twain's own version, it is almost impossible to see the seams where 1970 joins 1884." -- Geoffrey Wolff, Newsweek

Huckleberry Finn had a tough life with his drunk father until an adventure with Tom Sawyer changed everything. But when Huck's dad returns and kidnaps him, he must escape down the Mississippi river with runaway slave, Jim. They encounter trouble at every turn, from floods and gunfights to armed bandits and the long arm of the law. Through it all the friends stick together - but can Huck and Tom free Jim from slavery once and for all?

A critical examination of Mark Twain's character of Huckleberry Finn.