The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

by Mark Twain

First published 1876

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3.9(1,045,655)

In the Missouri river town of St Petersburg, Tom Sawyer resists Aunt Polly’s discipline, turns punishment into performance and pursues adventures with Huckleberry Finn, Joe Harper and Becky Thatcher. The boys’ games become dangerous when Tom and Huck witness Injun Joe murder Dr Robinson in a graveyard and allow the innocent Muff Potter to be blamed for the crime.

Tom’s fear of speaking out competes with his desire to appear heroic, carrying the story from schoolrooms and Sunday school to Jackson’s Island, the courtroom and McDougal’s Cave. Set in a fictionalised version of Hannibal during the 1840s, the novel combines childhood comedy with a darker portrait of poverty, violence, superstition and the fragile authority of an antebellum Mississippi River community.