Today's classic is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain.
Synopsis:
Hilariously picaresque, epic in scope, alive with the poetry and vigor of the American people, Mark Twain's story about a young boy and his journey down the Mississippi was the first great novel to speak in a truly American voice. Influencing subsequent generations of writers— from Sherwood Anderson to Twain's fellow Missourian, T.S. Eliot, from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner to J.D. Salinger—Huckleberry Finn, like the river which flows through its pages, is one of the great sources which nourished and still nourishes the literature of America.
Here's the beginning:
You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.Read the rest of Huckleberry Finn at The Online Literature Library.
If you've read it, take a quiz to test your memory at SparkNotes.
Have you read Huck Finn? Tom Sawyer too?
___________________________________________________
Make sure to vote for the August book!
