Editorial Reviews:
Synopsis
"A GOLD MINE FOR SCHOLARS."
*Deidre Carmody
The New York Times
Now, in this extraordinary literary uncovering, the original first half of Mark Twain's American masterpiece is available for the first time ever to a general readership. Lost for more than a century, the passages reinstated in this edition reveal a novel even more controversial than the version Twain published in 1885 and provide an invaluable insight into his creative process. A breakthrough of unparalleled impact, this comprehensive edition of an American classic is the final rebuttal in the tireless debate of "what Twain really meant."
"[A] MASTERLY RESTORATION . . . I wish this new version of Huckleberry Finn would be distributed to all the nation's classrooms as the basic text and lead to a badly needed reconsideration of the questions it raises."
*James A. McPherson
Chicago Tribune
"THOUGHTFULLY RESPECTS TWAIN'S INTENTIONS."
*Gary Lee Stonum
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
With a Foreword and Addendum by Victor Doyno
Amazon.com Review
A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published.