Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

I just finished reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, an 1876 Bildungsroman and picaresque novel, among other genres, which, alongside its 1884 sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is considered by many to be a masterpiece of American literature. The book was written by Mark Twain, the world-renowned American writer, humorist, and essayist, and was said to be one of the first novels to be written on a typewriter. 

While I enjoyed following all the adventures in the novel, I equally appreciated reading Twain's biography, as I have experienced from reading other literature classics in the past. I was amazed by his wide range of experiences in life, apart from being a great writer and humorist, he was an apprentice, a printer, a riverboat pilot, a Confederate volunteer, a reporter, a miner, an inventor, and, not the least, an anti-imperialist.

Born Samuel Clemens on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, Twain was the sixth of seven children of Jane (née Lampton; 1803–1890), a native of Kentucky, and John Clemens (1798–1847), a native of Virginia. When he was four, Twain's family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Slavery was legal in Missouri at the time, and it became a theme in these writings.

I was particularly fascinated by how Twain got his pen name, which was related to his experience as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. In the 1850s, the leadsmen on the river used old-fashioned words for some of the numbers; for example instead of "two" they would say "twain".  When the leadsman cried "mark twain", it meant a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe water for a steamboat. Captain Isaiah Sellers first used "Mark Twain" as his pen name to write river news. After Sellers died in 1863, Clemens adopted it as his own pen name, and the rest is history.

Another interesting anecdote is that Twain named his fictional character, Tom Sawyer, after a San Francisco fireman whom he met in June 1863. The real Tom Sawyer was a local hero, famous for rescuing 90 passengers after a shipwreck. The two remained friendly during Twain's three-year stay in San Francisco, often drinking and gambling together.

In addition, through his biography I learned about his friendship with Thomas Edison, arguably one of the greatest inventors at the turn of the 20th century. In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at Stormfield, his home in Redding, Connecticut, and filmed him alongside his daughters Jean and Clara. Part of the footage was used in The Prince and the Pauper (1909), a two-reel short film. It is the only known existing film footage of Twain.

Moreover, I was surprised to learn about Twain's vocal anti-imperialism, in the context of the Philippine–American War, as quoted below:

"I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ... Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris (which ended the Spanish–American War), and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.

It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

Above all, Twain famously predicted that his death would coincide with the next visit of Halley’s Comet, just as his birth in 1835 had coincided with its previous visit. Twain's prediction was eerily accurate; he died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Stormfield, one day after the comet was at its closest to the sun and a month before the comet passed by Earth. Here's what he said in 1909:

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. 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".

Reading Twain's biography helped me appreciate his masterpiece more deeply. Set in the pre-Civil War era, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer captures the spirit of small-town America along the Mississippi River. Mark Twain drew inspiration from his own experiences growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, and the novel reflects the social, cultural, and economic aspects of the time. Following the adventures of a young boy named Tom Sawyer who is known for his mischievous and adventurous nature, The novel is considered a classic of American literature, with its enduring popularity lying in its timeless portrayal of childhood and the universal themes of friendship, imagination, and the transition from adolescence to adulthood. 

Tom Sawyer is an orphan and the novel’s protagonist. Tom is a mischievous boy with an active imagination who spends most of the novel getting himself, and often his friends, into and out of trouble. Despite his mischief, Tom has a good heart and a strong moral conscience. As the novel progresses, he begins to take more seriously the responsibilities of his role as a leader among his schoolfellows.

Aunt Polly is Tom’s aunt and guardian. She is a simple, kindhearted woman who struggles to balance her love for her nephew with her duty to discipline him. She usually fails to keep Tom under control because, although she worries about Tom’s safety, she seems to fear constraining him too much. Above all, Aunt Polly wants to be appreciated and loved.

Becky Thatcher is the pretty, yellow-haired daughter of Judge Thatcher.  Tom falls for Becky instantly in an innocent and childlike version of “love at first sight,” and he spends the rest of the novel courting her favor. Naïve at first, Becky soon matches Tom as a romantic strategist, and the two go to great lengths to make each other jealous.

Huckleberry Finn is the son of the town drunk. Huck is a juvenile outcast who is shunned by respectable society and adored by the local boys, who envy his freedom. Like Tom, Huck is highly superstitious, and both boys are always ready for an adventure. Huck gradually replaces Tom’s friend Joe Harper as Tom’s sidekick in his escapades. A sequel to the novel was named after Huck, published in 1884 (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) which I plan to read next.