In this enduring and internationally popular novel Mark Twain combines social satire and
dime-novel sensation with a rhapsody on boyhood and on America's pre-industrial past. Tom
Sawyer is resilient enterprising and vainglorious and in a series of adventures along the
banks of the Mississippi he usually manages to come out on top. From petty triumphs over his
friends and over his long-suffering Aunt Polly to his intervention in a murder trial Tom
engages readers of all ages. He has long been a defining figure in the American cultural
imagination. Alongside the charm and the excitement the novel also raises questions about
identity and about attitudes to class and race. Above all Twain's study of childhood brings
into focus emergent notions of individual and literary maturity.
