Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Max Lester Loges (Lamar University)
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

(1876)

is one of the most famous books in American Literature and its hero has gone down in history as the very type of all-American bad-boy with a good heart. The novel is in many ways a rebuttal to the educational boys’ stories Twain read as a child in Sunday school and of which he had written similar but shorter parodies during his days as a journalist in the West. These stories include “The Story of a Bad Little Boy Who Lived a Charmed Life” (1865) and “The Story of a Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper” (1870), but the actual seed for

Tom Sawyer

was “A Boy’s Manuscript” (1868) which tells in diary form the antics of Billy Rogers and his love affair with Amy Lawrence.

Tom Sawyer is known for its coherent and relatively problem-free

2927 words

Citation: Loges, Max Lester. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 October 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1649, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1649 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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