He was forced to quit school at the age of 12 in order to earn his living. He wrote his first
article at 15, and his first short story was published when he was 16. In 1857 he started down the Mississippi toward New Orleans as an apprentice steamboat pilot. The people he met and the scenes he viewed during these four years on the Mississippi furn
ished characters and situations for his later writings.
par tab His first successful literary exploit was a short story: }{ i fs22 The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County}{ fs22 , which brought him national attention.
par tab }{ i fs22 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn}{ fs22 , a sequel to }{ i fs22 Tom Sawyer}{ fs22 in the picaresque vein of the latter, being a keener realistic portrayal of regional character and frontier experience on the Mississippi.
par tab It is the story of a flight down the Mississippi of a white boy (Huck) and of a runaway slave (Jim). Really astonishing is the variety of its farce and character.
par } pard qj fi720 nowidctlpar widctlpar adjustright { i fs22 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn}{ fs22
is one of the supreme masterpiece of American literature - a work which reaches out beyond the limitations of time and touches what is most human in the readers of any age or country.
par } pard qj nowidctlpar widctlpar adjustright { fs22 tab Huck rquote
s character is so morally sensitive that he must undergo a moral testing and development. And Huck becomes a heroic character when, urged on by affection, he discards the moral code he has always taken for granted and resolves to help J
im in his escape from slavery. The intensity of his struggle over the act suggests how deeply he is involved in the society which he rejects.
par tab Huck means by ldblquote right rdblquote for a Negro to be a slave; if a Negro runs away, every white man has the duty to stop him and take back to his master to be punished.
