Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (often shortened to Huck Finn) is
a novel written by Mark Twain and published in 1884. It is commonly
regarded as one of the Great American Novels, and is one of the
first major American novels written in the vernacular,
characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first
person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer and
narrator of two other Twain novels.
The book is noted for its colorful description of people and
places along the Mississippi River. By satirizing a Southern
antebellum society that was already anachronistic at the time of
its publication, the book is an often scathing look at entrenched
attitudes, particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huck and
his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on
their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and
freedom in all of American literature.
The book has been popular with young readers since its
publication and is taken as a sequel to the comparatively innocuous
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It has also been the continued object
of study by serious literary critics. The book was criticized upon
release because of its coarse language, and became even more
controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of
racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial
slur, "nigger".