Introduction by George Saunders

Commentary by Thomas Perry Sergeant, Bernard DeVoto, Clifton Fadiman, T. S. Eliot, and Leo Marx

_ÒAll modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn,Ó Ernest Hemingway wrote. ÒItÕs the best book weÕve had.Ó A complex masterpiece that spawned controversy right from the start (it was banished from the Concord library shelves in 1885), it is at heart a compelling adventure story. Huck, in flight from his murderous father, and Jim, in flight from slavery, pilot their raft through treacherous waters, surviving a crash with a steamboat and betrayal by rogues. As Norman Mailer has said, ÒThe mark of how good Huckleberry Finn has to be is that one can compare it to a number of our best modern American novels and it stands up page for page.Ó