The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Mark Twain

Description

This antiquarian volume contains Mark Twain’s 1876 novel, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”. It tells the story of a young boy who grows up on the Mississippi River. Whether creating a band of pirates and searching for buried treasure or occupying himself happily at home, Tom Sawyer is evocative a well-spent youth in nineteenth century rural America. This classic book would make for a great addition to any bookshelf, and constitutes a must-have for fans and collectors of Twain’s seminal work. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 – 1910) better known by his pseudonym, Mark Twain, was an esteemed author.

Sujets

• Las aventuras de Huckleberry Finn
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Les Aventures de Huckleberry Finn
• Mark Twain

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781473374225
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE ADVENTURES of TOM SAWYER
By MARK TWAIN


Copyright © 2016 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library




CONTENTS
Mark Twain
PREFACE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CONCLUSION






MARK TWAIN
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pseudonym Mark Twain, was born on 30 November, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, USA. He was born the day after a visit by Halley’s Comet, and died the day following its subsequent return in 1910. He is best known for the novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often referred to as ‘the Great American Novel’. Hailed as ‘the father of American literature’ by William Faulkner, Twain was a friend of presidents, performers, entrepreneurs and royalty. His wit and satire endeared him to peers and critics alike. Twain spent most of his childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, which provided the inspirational setting for much of his later works. It was here that Twain started writing, contributing articles to his older brother, Orion’s newspaper. After a brief, unsuccessful, spell mining in Nevada and California, twain returned to writing – penning The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County in 1865. This was a humorous tale based on a story heard at a mining camp in California, and won Twain international attention. Five years later, Twain married Olivia Langdon, the sister of Charles Langdon, a man whom Twain met on a trip to the Middle East. Upon Langdon showing a picture of his sister Olivia to Twain, Twain claimed to have fallen in love with her at first sight. Through Olivia, Twain met many prominent liberals, socialists and political activists, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, the abolitionist and author, as well as the utopian socialist, William Dean Howells. These connections deeply influenced Twain’s later political outlook, remaining firmly anti-imperialist, anti-organised religion, an abolitionist and a steady supporter of the labour movement. Twain and Olivia had three daughters, Susy, Clara and Jean, and one son, Langdon. Unfortunately Langdon died whilst he was still in infancy. The family spent many happy summers at Quarry Farm - Olivia’s sister’s home on the outskirts of New York, where Twain wrote many of his classic novels; The Adventures and Huckleberry Finn , as well as The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883) and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). Despite these successes, financial as well as literary, Twain lost a great deal of money through investing in new technologies. His love of science and invention led him to invest a massive 300,000 dollars (about 8 million dollars today) in the Paige typesetting machine. This mechanical marvel was made redundant before it was even completed however, by the Linotype machine, and Twain lost his entire investment. As a result of this, on the advice from a friend, Twain filed for Bankruptcy. Fortunately, he was heavily in demand as a featured speaker, and embarked on a massive worldwide lecture tour in July 1895 to pay off all his creditors. After nearly five years travelling, Twain returned to America having earned enough money to pay off his debts. On his homecoming, Twain sadly suffered a period of deep depression, which began on his daughter Susy’s death in 1896, and worsened on the death of his wife in 1904 and his other daughter Jean in 1909. Twain died of a heart attack on 21 April, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut. He had predicted his death, the day after Halley’s comets closest approach to Earth; ‘It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’’ He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, New York.


To
MY WIFE This Book is Affectionately Dedicated


PREFACE
Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.
The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.
Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.
THE AUTHOR.
HARTFORD, 1876.


CHAPTER I


“TOM!”
No answer.
“TOM!”
No answer.
“What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!”
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for “style,” not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
“Well, I lay if I get hold of you I’ll—”
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
“I never did see the beat of that boy!”
She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and “jimpson” weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:
“Y-o-u-u TOM!”
There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
“There! I might ‘a’ thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that truck?”
“I don’t know, aunt.”
“Well, I know. It’s jam—that’s what it is. Forty times I’ve said if you didn’t let that jam alone I’d skin you. Hand me that switch.”
The switch hovered in the air—the peril was desperate—
“My! Look behind you, aunt!”
The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it.
Hi s aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.
“Hang the boy, can’t I never learn anything? Ain’t he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can’t learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what’s coming? He ‘pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to


put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it’s all down again and I can’t hit him a lick. I ain’t doing my duty by that boy, and that’s the Lord’s truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I’m a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He’s full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he’s my own dead sister’s boy, poor thing, and I ain’t got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it’s so. He’ll play hookey this evening, * and [* Southwestern for “afternoon”] I’ll just be obleeged to make him work, tomorrow, to punish him. It’s mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I’ve got to do some of my duty by him, or I’ll be the ruination of the child.”
Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season to help Jim, the small colored b