The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (also simply known asTom Sawyer) is a novel byMark Twain published on June 9, 1876, about a boy,Tom Sawyer, growing up along theMississippi River. It is set in the 1830s–1840s in the town of St. Petersburg, which is based onHannibal, Missouri, where Twain lived as a boy.[2] In the novel, Sawyer has several adventures, often with his friendHuckleberry Finn. Originally a commercial failure, the book ended up being the best-selling of Twain's works during his lifetime.[3][4]
Orphan Tom Sawyer (around 12 to 13 years old) lives with hisAunt Polly and his half-brother Sid in the town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, sometime in the 1830s–1840s. He frequently skips school to play or go swimming. When Polly catches him sneaking home late on a Friday evening and discovers that he has been in a fight, she makes himwhitewash her fence the next day as punishment.
Tom persuades several neighborhood children to trade him smalltrinkets and treasures for the "privilege" of doing his work, usingreverse psychology to convince them of its enjoyable nature. Later, Tom trades the trinkets with students in hisSunday school class for tickets given out for memorizing verses ofScripture. He collects enough tickets to earn a prizedBible from the teacher, despite being one of the worst students in the class and knowing almost nothing of Scripture, eliciting envy from the students and a mixture of pride and shock from the adults.
Tom falls in love withBecky Thatcher, a girl who is new in town. Tom wins the admiration of her father, the prominentJudge Thatcher, in the church by obtaining the Bible as a prize, but reveals his ignorance when he cannot answer basic questions about Scripture. Tom pursues Becky, eventually persuading her to get "engaged" by kissing her. Their romance soon collapses when she discovers that Tom was "engaged" to another schoolgirl,Amy Lawrence.
Becky spurns Tom, who accompaniesHuckleberry Finn, a vagrant boy whom all the other boys admire, to a graveyard at midnight to perform aritual intended to healwarts. At the graveyard, they witness threebody snatchers, Dr. Robinson, Muff Potter andInjun Joe, robbing a grave. A fight breaks out, during which Robinson knocks Potterunconscious and is thenmurdered by Injun Joe. When Potter wakes up, Injun Joe puts the weapon in his hand and tells him that he killed Robinson while drunk. Tom and Huck swear ablood oath not to tell anyone about the murder, fearing that Injun Joe will find out and kill them for revenge. Potter is arrested and jailed to await trial, not disputing Injun Joe's claim.
Tom grows bored with school, and he, his friend/classmate Joe Harper, and Huck run away to Jackson's Island in theMississippi River to begin life as "pirates". While enjoying their freedom, they notice the community is scouring the river for their bodies, as the boys are missing andpresumed dead. Tom sneaks back home one night to observe the commotion and, after a moment of remorse at his loved ones' suffering, conceives a plan to attend his ownfuneral. The three carry out this scheme, appearing atchurch in the middle of their joint funeral service and winning the respect of their classmates for the stunt. Back in school, Becky rips a page in the school master'sanatomy book after Tom startles her, but Tom regains her admiration by claiming responsibility for the damage and accepting thepunishment that would have been hers.
During Potter's murder trial, Tom breaks his oath with Huck andtestifies for the defense, identifying Injun Joe as the actual culprit. Injun Joe flees thecourtroom before he can be apprehended; Potter isacquitted, but Tom and Huck now live in fear for their lives.
Once school lets out for thesummer, Tom and Huck decide to hunt for buried treasure in the area. While investigating an abandoned house, they are interrupted by the arrival of two men; one of them is a Spaniard, supposedly deaf-mute, who is actually Injun Joe in disguise. He and his partner plan to bury some stolen treasure in the house, but inadvertently discover a hoard ofgold coins while doing so. They decide to move it to a new hiding place, which Tom and Huck are determined to find. One night, Huck follows the men, who plan to break into the home of the wealthyWidow Douglas so Injun Joe canmutilate her face in revenge for being publicly whipped for vagrancy – a punishment handed down by her late husband, ajustice of the peace. Huck summons help and prevents the break-in, but asks that his name not be made public for fear of retaliation by Injun Joe.
Shortly before Huck stops the crime, Tom goes on apicnic to a localcave with Becky and their classmates. Tom and Becky become lost and wander in the cave for days, facingstarvation anddehydration. Becky becomes dehydrated and weak, and Tom's search for a way out grows more desperate. He encounters Injun Joe by chance, but is not seen. He eventually finds an exit, and he and Becky are joyfully welcomed back to town, learning that they have been missing for three days and traveled five miles (eight kilometers) from the entrance. Judge Thatcher has the cave's entrance door reinforced and locked. When Tom hears of this action two weeks later, he is horror-stricken, knowing that Injun Joe is still inside. He directs a posse to the cave, where they find Injun Joe dead of starvation just inside the entrance.
A week later, having deduced from Injun Joe's presence that the stolen gold must be hidden in the cave, Tom takes Huck there in search of it. They find the gold, which totals over$12,000 (equivalent to $405,000 in 2024) and is invested on their behalf. The Widow Douglas adopts Huck, who finds the restrictions of acivilized home life painful, attempting to escape back to hisvagrant life. He reluctantly returns to the widow, persuaded by Tom's offer to form a high-classrobber gang.
The novel has elements of humor, satire and social criticism – features that later madeMark Twain one of the most important authors ofAmerican literature. Mark Twain describes some autobiographical events in the book. The novel's setting of St. Petersburg is based on Twain's actual boyhood home of Hannibal, nearSt. Louis, and many of the places in it are real and today support a tourist industry as a result.[7]
The concept of boyhood is developed through Tom's actions, including his runaway adventure with Joe and Huckleberry. In Twain's novel, Tom and his friend are young when they decide they want to learn how to smoke a pipe. Tom and Joe do this to show just how cool they are to the other boys.[8]
Tom Sawyer was Twain's first attempt to write a novel. He had previously written contemporary autobiographical narratives (The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims' Progress andRoughing It) and two short texts called sketches which parody the youth literature of the time. These areThe Story of the Good Boy andThe Story of the Wicked Little Boy which are satirical texts of a few pages. In the first, a model child is never rewarded and ends up dying before he can declaim his last words which he has carefully prepared. In the second story, an evil little boy steals and lies, like Tom Sawyer, but finishes rich and successful. Tom appears as a mixture of these little boys since he is at the same time a scamp and a boy endowed with a certain generosity.
By the time he wroteTom Sawyer, Twain was already a successful author based on the popularity ofThe Innocents Abroad. He owned a large house inHartford, Connecticut, but needed another success to support himself, with a wife and two daughters. He had collaborated on a novel withCharles Dudley Warner,The Gilded Age, published in 1874.[9]
He had earlier written an unpublished memoir of his own life on the Mississippi and had corresponded with a boyhood friend, Will Bowen, both of which had evoked many memories and were used as source material.
Twain named his fictional character after aSan Francisco fireman whom he met in June 1863. The real Tom Sawyer was a local hero, famous for rescuing 90 passengers after ashipwreck. The two remained friendly during Twain's three-year stay in San Francisco, often drinking and gambling together.[10]
Frontispiece and title page of the first American edition
In November 1875, Twain gave the manuscript to Elisha Bliss of theAmerican Publishing Company, who sent it toTrue Williams for the illustrations. A little later, Twain had the text also quickly published atChatto and Windus of London, in June 1876, but without illustration. Pirate editions appeared very quickly in Canada and Germany. The American Publishing Company finally published its edition in December 1876, which was the first illustrated edition of Tom Sawyer.[11]
The book has raised controversy for its use of the racial epithet "nigger"; abowdlerized version aroused indignation among some literary critics.[13]
The book has been criticized for its caricature-like portrayal ofNative Americans through the characterInjun Joe. He is depicted as malevolent for the sake of malevolence, is not allowed to redeem himself in any way by Twain, dies a pitiful and despairing death in a cave and upon his death is treated as a tourist attraction.Carter Revard suggests that the adults in the novel blame the character's Indian blood as the cause of his evil.[14]
Tom Sawyer, the story's title character, also appears in two other uncompleted sequels:Huck and Tom Among the Indians andTom Sawyer's Conspiracy. He is also a character in Twain's unfinishedSchoolhouse Hill.
Sawyer and Finn (1983), American TV series pilot in which Tom Sawyer (Peter Horton) and Huck Finn (Michael Dudikoff) reunite by chance 10 years after the original story and seek new adventures in the Old West.[24]
Wishbone (1995), the first episode, "A Tail in Twain", has the title character imagining himself as Tom, with the character of Injun Joe being referred to as "Crazy Joe".
From 1932 to 1933, German philosopherTheodor Adorno adaptedThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer as a ballad opera titledDer Schatz des Indianer-Joe (Treasure of Joe, the Indian). He never finished the musical accompaniment. The libretto was published by his wifeGretel Adorno and student Rolf Tiedemann in 1979.[30]
In 1956,We're From Missouri, a musical adaptation ofThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer, with book, music, and lyrics by Tom Boyd, was presented by the students at theGuildhall School of Music and Drama.
In 1981, the playThe Boys in Autumn by the American dramatist Bernhard Sabath premiered in San Francisco. In the play, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn meet again as old men. Despite good reviews, the play has remained largely unknown.[33]
In 2015, theMark Twain House and Museum selected 17-year-old Noah Altshuler (writer ofMaking the Move) as Mark Twain Playwright in Residence, to create a modern, meta-fictional adaptation ofThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer for regional and commercial production.[35]
Tom Sawyer: A Ballet in Three Acts premiered on October 14, 2011, at theKauffman Center for the Performing Arts inKansas City, Missouri. The score was by composerMaury Yeston, with choreography by William Whitener, artistic director of theKansas City Ballet.[36][37] A review inThe New York Times observed: "It's quite likely that this is the first all-new, entirely American three-act ballet: it is based on an American literary classic, has an original score by an American composer and was given its premiere by an American choreographer and company. ... Both the score and the choreography are energetic, robust, warm, deliberately naïve (both ornery and innocent), in ways right for Twain."[38]
Joyas Literarias Juveniles #182: "Las aventuras de Tom Sawyer" (Editorial Bruguera, 1977) – adapted by Juan Manuel González Cremona and Xirinius [as Jaime Juez]
Classics Illustrated #9:The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (First Comics, May 1990) – adapted byMike Ploog; reprinted inClassics Illustrated #19 (NBM, 2014)
Classics Illustrated Deluxe #4:The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Papercutz, 2009) – adapted byJean-David Morvan, Frederique Voulyze, and Severine Le Fevebvre
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Capstone Publishers, 2007) – adapted by Daniel Strickland
Manga Classics: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (UDON Entertainment Manga Classics, April 2018)[40] – adapted by Crystal Silvermoon and Kuma Chan
2025: Radio Mirchi Kolkata's station aired The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in Bengali, translated by Pratik Kumar Mondal, Directed by Tomali Chaudhuri for Mirchi's Friday Classics Programme. Tom Sawyer was voiced by Usnish Bhaumik. Huckleberry Finn was voiced by Nirnay Pal.[41]
Beaver, Harold, et al., eds. "The role of structure in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn."Huckleberry Finn. Vol. 1. No. 8. (Johns Hopkins Textual Studies, 1987) pp. 1–57.
Beringer, Alex. "Humbug History: The Politics of Puffery in Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy."Mark Twain Annual 14.1 (2016): 114–126.Online
Blair, Walter. "On the Structure of Tom Sawyer".Modern Philology 37.1 (1939): 75–88.
Bonilla, Joe Montenegro. "The American Past and Present: A New Historicist Approach to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."Letras 2.64 (2018): 109–129.online
Buchen, Callista. "Writing the Imperial Question at Home: Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians Revisited."Mark Twain Annual 9 (2011): 111–129.online
Caron, James E. "The Arc of Mark Twain's Satire, or Tom Sawyer the Moral Snag."American Literary Realism 51.1 (2018): 36–58.Online[dead link]
Dadjo, Servais Dieu-Donné Yédia. "Analysing Linguistic Stylistic Devices in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and So Long a Letter: A Comparative Appraisal."International Journal of English Linguistics 12.2 (2022). online
Dillingham, William B. "Setting and Theme in Tom Sawyer."Mark Twain Journal 12.2 (1964): 6–8online.
Girsang, Martina, et al. "Exploring the Language Usage in Mark Twain's Novel 'Adventures of Tom Sawyer': Hegemonic Masculinity Analysis."REiLA: Journal of Research and Innovation in Language 4.2 (2022): 197–208.online
Gribben, Alan. "Tom Sawyer, Tom Canty, and Huckleberry Finn: The Boy Book and Mark Twain."Mark Twain Journal 55.1/2 (2017): 127–144online
Hill, Hamlin L. "The Composition and the Structure of Tom Sawyer."American Literature 32.4 (1961): 379–392online.
Kenny, Neil. "of Literature on Beliefs The Example of Injun Joe in Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer." inReading Beyond the Code: Literature and Relevance Theory (2018): 73+online.
Roberts, James L.CliffsNotes Twain's The adventures of Tom Sawyer (2001)online free to borrow
Simpson, Claude Mitchell, ed.Twentieth century interpretations of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: a collection of critical essays (Prentice Hall, 1968).
Tibbetts, John C., And James M, Welsh, eds.The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2005) pp 3–5.
Towers, Tom H. "I Never Thought We Might Want to Come Back": Strategies of Transcendence in" Tom Sawyer."Modern Fiction Studies 21.4 (1975): 509–520online.
West, Mark I. "Playing Pirates with Tom Sawyer: The Intersection of Reader-Response Theory and Play Theory."The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children's Literature 20.1 (2017).online
