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327 pages, Paperback
First published February 18, 1884
“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.”
“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”
“We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed – only a little kind of a low chuckle.”![]()
* My favorite rant here, under spoiler tag for brevity sake:
NOTICEThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn opens in the aftermath of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and for a time, it has the same joyous feel as the boys continue their antics of rebellious 12-year-olds. But the return of Huck Finn’s drunk of a father, Pap, hints at the darker, more serious themes of this novel. After being kidnapped and beaten, Huck escapes his father by faking his own death and then going on the run. He soon crosses paths with a runaway slave, Jim, and together they raft their way down the Mississippi.
PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
...
Jim said that bees won't sting idiots, but I didn't believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me.
...
Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.Huck says the wrong thing, and uses racist language, again and again throughout this book. But he ultimately recognizes and acts on his and Jim’s shared humanity and equality. That might be the best we can realistically expect from a book published in the 1880s. And some days, it’s obvious that our society has not come nearly as far on this score as we’d like to think we have.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.
"وأيقنت ألا جدوى من إضاعة الوقت هباء, فأنت لا تستطيع أن تعلم زنجياً كيف يجادل. وعندئذ كففت عن الحديث" هاكلبري فين, بعد أن رفض الزنجي أن الاختلاف بين الأمريكي والفرنسي مثل الاختلاف بين القطة والبقرة
"قد يكون مارك توين أكثر النقاد فاعلية عند نقده لجهل البشر وخدعهم حتى الآن, بالرغم من مظهرها فهي تبدو وكأنها قصص مغامرات, فهي بالحقيقة مجموعة من إفشاءات صادمة للضعف البشري, والتي تقودها الخرافات, العنصرية, الجشع, والجهل"
- فدية؟ وما هي الفدية؟
- لست أدري! ولكن هذا ما يفعله المغامرون دائماً! ولقد قرأت عن الفدية في الكتب. ومن ثم فهذا هو ما يجب علينا أن نفعله!!
- ولكن كيف يمكننا أن نفعل ذلك ونحن لا نعرفه؟
- مهما يكن من أمر, فإنه يجب علينا أن "نفعل" ذلك! ألم أقل لك إنه مذكور في الكتب؟ هل تريد أن تأتي عملاً يخالف ما ورد في الكتب؟ وأن تفسد كل مغامرتنا بذلك؟
...
- ولماذا لا يلتقط الإنسان هراوة و "يفتديهم" بمجرد مجيئهم إلى هنا؟!!
- لأن ذلك ليس مذكوراً في الكتب!..هذا هو السبب يا "بن روجرز".. هل تريد أن تعالج الأمور حسب النظام المتبع أم بطريقة مخالفة؟ -هذه هي المسألة ..ألا تظن أن أولئك الذين وضعوا الكتب يعرفون الإجراءات الصحيحة التي ينبغي اتخاذها؟ هل تظن "أنك" تستطيع أن تعلمهم شيئاً؟ كلا يا سيدي! سوف "نفتدي" هؤلاء الأشخاص بالطريقة المتبعة
- .. وهل نفتدي النساء أيضا؟
- لا, فان أحداً لم يقرأ عن مثل هذا في الكتب!
- إن ما يجعلني أشعر بالحزن هذه المرة , هو أ��ني سمعت صوت باب يغلق بعنف منذ قليل , فذكرني ذلك بالمعاملة السيئة التي عاملت بها ابنتي اليزابيث الصغيرة في أحد الأيام ! لم تكن حينذاك قد بلغت الرابعة من عمرها , وأصيبت بالحمى القرمزية , وكانت إصابتها شديدة الوطأة ولكنها شفيت . واتفق ذات يوم أن كانت تقف أمام المنزل فقلت لها :
- أغلقي الباب.
ولكنها لم تفعل , وابتسمت لي فجن جنوني , فقلت لها مرة أخرى بصوت مرتفع:
- ألا تسمعيني ؟ أغلقي الباب .
فوقفت جامدة في مكانها , والابتسامة على شفتيها , فازددت سخطاً وغيظاً وصحت :
- سأجعلك تطيعين ما أقوله لك .
وهويت بيدي فوق رأسها , فسقطت على الأرض . ثم تركتها ودخلت المنزل وقضيت هناك عشر دقائق .. وعندما خرجت , كان الباب لا يزال مفتوحا والطفلة واقفة وقد خفضت رأسها والدموع تنهمر من عينيها .. وقد زادني ذلك جنونا ؛ وهممت بالانقضاض عليها , لولا أن الريح هبت في تلك اللحظة فأغلقت الباب خلف الطفلة .. ولمنها لم تتحرك من مكانها . فأحسست بأن قلبي يكاد يفلت من بين ضلوعي , وتقدمت نحو الباب وفتحته بلطف وهدوء وأبرزت رأسي من خلفه , فإذا بالطفلة لا تزال واقفة في مكانها ؛ وعندئذ صحت فيها صيحة مدوية مفاجئة , ولكنها لم تتحرك .. أواه يا هاك .. لقد انفجرت باكيا , وحملت الطفلة بين ذراعي وقلت لها : أيتها الطفلة المسكينة , فليغفر الله العظيم لجيم المسكين ما أتاه من أثر عظيم , لأن جيم لن يغتفر لنفسه هذا الإثم طالما بقي على قيد الحياة" .. يا الهي يا "هاك" ..
لقد كانت الطفلة التعسة بكماء صماء .. ومع ذلك عاملتها لك خشونة.!
وقالت لي الآنسة واطسون انه ينبغي علي أن أصلي كل يوم حتى أستطيع على كل ما أطلبه في صلاتي! ولقد جربت ذلك, ولكن الصلاة لم تحقق لي أي مطلب! ... لقد كنت أحدث قائلاً: "إذا كان الناس يستطيعون الحصول على ما يريدون بالصلاة فلماذا لا يستعيد "ويكون وين" النقود التي فقدها في تربية الخنازير؟ ولماذا لا تستطيع الأرملة دوجلاس أن تسترد علية "السعوط" الفضية التي سرقت منها؟ ولماذا لا تستطيع الآنسة واطسون أن تزيد من وزنها" وعندئذ أيقنت أنه ليس في الإمكان أن يحقق الإنسان أمنيته بالصلاة! وذهبت إلى الأرملة وقلت لها رأيي, فقالت أن الشيء الذي يستطيع الإنسان الحصول عليه من الصلاة هو "الهبات الروحية" لا الهبات المادية!!
"فأجبت : أكبر الظن أن هؤلاء الجن أغبياء لأنهم لا يحتفظون بالقصر لأنفسهم بدلاً من أن يشيدوه لغيرهم ! فلو أنني كنت واحداً منهم , لما لبيت نداء أي شخص يحك مصباحاً قديماً من الصفيح !! بل لو أنني كنت واحداً من هؤلاء الجن, لتخليت عن عملي !"
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly – Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is – and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.
When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sun-shiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits whispering – spirits that's been dead ever so many years – and you always think they're talking about YOU.
If I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more.
"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio -- a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane -- the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could vote when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin. Them's the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me -- I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger -- why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold? -- that's what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet. There, now -- that's a specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger.I'm sorry, but I'm honestly unable to see how anyone could think the above passage was racist or might be improved by substituting 'slave' for 'nigger'. It's incidents like this which create the popular European myth that Americans don't understand the concept of irony.
Later, Bowdler realised his father had been extemporaneously omitting or altering passages he felt unsuitable for the ears of his wife and children. Bowdler felt it would be worthwhile to present an edition which might be used in a family whose father was not a sufficiently "circumspect and judicious reader" to accomplish this expurgation himself.He undertook to create a suitably amended version. Or, to be exact, he got his sister to do it and then gave out the books under his own name. Again, his reasons were unimpeachable: it would have reflected badly on her to admit that she had understood the naughtier passages.