Tom Sawyer Abroad

Adventures of Tom and Huck #3

by Mark Twain

Tom Sawyer Abroad is a novel by Mark Twain published in 1894. It features Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn in a parody of Jules Verne-esque adventure stories. In the story, Tom, Huck & Jim set sail to Africa in a futuristic hot air balloon, where they survive encounters with lions, robbers & fleas to see some of the world's greatest wonders, including the Pyramids & the Sphinx. Like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & Tom Sawyer, Detective, the story is told using the 1st-person narrative voice of Huck Finn.

Excerpt:

So he did it. He had a little wee bit of steamboating, and some stage-coaching, but all the rest of the way was horseback, and it took him three weeks to get to Washington. He saw lots of land and lots of villages and four cities. He was gone 'most eight weeks, and there never was such a proud man in the village as he when he got back. His travels made him the greatest man in all that region, and the most talked about; and people come from as much as thirty miles back in the country, and from over in the Illinois bottoms, too, just to look at him and there they'd stand and gawk, and he'd gabble. You never see anything like it.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Adventure, Young Adult, Humor, Historical Fiction, Audiobook

105 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1894

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

Reviews

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
Tom Sawyer Abroad ~~ Mark Twain



Selected by Kenny for August 2021 Big Book Read (In August I am reading the entire Tom & Huck Series as well as Life on the Mississippi & Huck Out West

Buddy Read with Aesaan

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are the two most famous books in all of American literature. But did you know that there are also two more little known sequels in this series: Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer Detective?

Tom Sawyer Abroad is a bit of a strange addition to the Tom Sawyer canon. The two previous books had been grounded in realism, based primarily on Mark Twain's own real childhood memories ~~ with, admittedly, some things slightly exaggerated for comic effect.

Here, all of a sudden, realism is completely out the window, and Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Jim are on a fantastic voyage around the world in a magical airship.

Had this book been published today, people would have described it as fan fiction ~~ and yet ~~ at the same time, that's kind of the book's appeal as well. Fan fiction can be kind of fun in it's own way. Come on guys, isn't there a 14-year-old boy inside all of us, who thinks it would be cool to hangout with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and take them out of small town Missouri and put the on a magical airship traveling to Africa and the pyramids? It's an idea so crazy you know it will fun.

In that respect, the biggest weakness of this book is also its biggest strength. It completely doesn't fit with the tone and style of the two books before it, and yet, if you just let yourself go along with the craziness of it, it can also be a lot of fun.



There are three things you have to be willing to forgive in order to enjoy this book:
1) the realistic universe of the first two books is gone, and we've now entered the fantasy genre ~~ ala Jules Verne.
2)the characters portrayals are inconsistent from the first two books.
3) this book is a follow up to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which is often considered the best book in all of American literature ~~ not to mention my favorite book. It's not a bad book, but it's not in the same league as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ~~ but what is?

If you can look past these things, then you can enjoy Tom Sawyer Abroad, and it does have its moments. A few laughs here and there, some interesting philosophizing thrown in at points. And best of all, the tone is light, the prose is breezy, and it's very easy to read. It may not be great literature, but for the small amount of effort that is required of the reader, this book is totally worth it.

As with most journey stories, there's not much of a coherent plot. Huck, Tom and Jim encounter something. They move on. They encounter something else. They move on. But the plot is not really the main point of this book. The conversations are the main point. Huck, Jim and Tom keep a running dialogue going all the time they're in the airship, in which they talk about everything from the crusades, to the history of the papacy, to the concept of time zones, to maps, to railroad speculating, to the rules of international diplomacy, to the US government's policy on import duties, and more.



So basically, the book is a dumping ground for every subject Mark Twain thought would be interesting, whether it's related to the plot or not. There's a whole chapter on a discussion Huck, Jim, and Tom have about how wonderful fleas are. It has nothing to do with anything in the book that comes before or after it, but Mark Twain was clearly interested in fleas, and thought he could mine the material for some jokes. There are a lot of little digressions like this ~~ that's part of the charm of Tom Sawyer Abroad.

That's pretty much it. The boys encounter a lot of random stuff and have a bunch of silly conversations, and therein lies the charm of Tom Sawyer Abroad.

[Taury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain is a the 3rd in the Tom Sawyer series. It is an adventure that follows Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Jim as they embark on journey in a hot air balloon across the world. The trio travels to exotic locations like Egypt and the Sahara Desert, encountering many challenges along the way. Twain blends humor, satire, and vivid descriptions of far-off lands to create an entertaining tale. While it lacks the depth of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, it is a novelette with Twain’s humor.

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was growing up, we had a 3-books-in-1-volume set of Tom Sawyer tales. The first one was the classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I read it, laughed myself silly over some of the classic scenes, like Tom whitewashing the fence and feeding the cat his medicine, and started in on the two sequels with a high sense of anticipation. And they fell completely flat.

This is a mildly interesting kids' adventure tale, with Tom, Huck and Jim sailing over Africa in a hot air balloon. The characters are sillier and the story lacks the kind of insight you might have expected. Mark Twain was in dire financial straits by this time, and I think he churned out these sequels without putting a lot of thought into them. Too bad.

[Prabhjot Kaur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Sawyer Abroad chronicles the adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Jim in Africa in a hot air balloon. While I loved The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn this wasn't as funny. I did like it but I did not love it.

A weak plot and not as enjoyable but not terrible either. Somewhere in between.

3 stars

[Bill on GR Sabbatical · Rating 2 out of 5]

If Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn were a TV series, the Tom Sawyer Abroad episode is where it started "jumping the shark", trading on the fame of Tom and Huck to carry a pretty thin plot, which also attempts to parody Jules Verne's popular adventure stories of the period. Other than the frequent use of racist language, there's not much to object to, but not a lot to take away from it, either. Tom, Huck, and Jim find themselves traveling in a futuristic balloon across the Atlantic Ocean and engage in various adventures and humorous debates in the Sahara Desert and Egypt and then the book ends. I'd recommend mostly for Twain fans.

[Pseudonymous d'Elder · Rating 3 out of 5]

__________________________
“I would rather have my ignorance than another man’s knowledge, because I have so much more of it.”––Mark Twain

I had read Tom Sawyer Abroad before, but I never noticed that Mark Twain swiped a lot of the plot from Jules Verne. And here’s the evidence I would take to court to prove my case––if there was any money in it.

Didn’t Tom and Huck and Jim get captured by a madman just like Kirk Douglas was in Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea? Sure enough. That fact is Sunday school true, and can’t be denied.

Didn’t that madman have a mysterious source of energy that powered his balloon-like flying machine just like Captain Nemo used to power the submarine in 20,000 Leagues under the Sea? Yes, sir! That was just the most powerful power I ever heer’d of. Beats steam power to blazes.

And didn’t that madman threaten to take the 3 of ‘em all the way around the Earth in his balloon, just like in Verne’s Around the World in 80 days. Yes, I got ‘em again. There ain’t no wiggling out of it.

And didn’t Huck and Jim and Tom fly around explorin’ Africa in said balloon just like in Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon. True. You couldn’t anymore stop them than you could keep the neighbor’s hogs out of your wallow.



Ear Go. I find Mark Twain guilty of parody. He is probably ashamed now that he has been caught. If I had discovered these unassailable facts back when I was a literature major in college, the dean would have made me a full professor, I’ll bet. Maybe even an Emeritus, which is the smartest kind of professor.

With the exception of being chased occasionally by lions, sandstorms, mad scientists, and “people who were not Presbyterians and didn’t speak Missourian,” our heroes spend most of their time in this brief novelette in inane arguments based on some of the purest ignorance known to man. Huck and Jim’s ignorance is 100% natural, untouched by any form of facts, literacy, or public education. Tom’s, on the other hand, is caused by learnin’ to read. He reads nothing but adventure stories; that’s the problem. He confuses fiction with facts if it suits his purpose, and Jim and Huck admire Tom’s grade school education so much that they often believe his prevarications and taradiddles is the truth.

These debates by ignoramuses are funny enough, I suppose. But there’s a parcel too many of them for me. Twain’s readers would have been better served if this novel was entitled Mark Twain’s Big Book of Stupid Arguments.

3 Stars.

[Theo Logos · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first time I read Tom Sawyer Abroad I was about 12 years old, and I loved it. That’s mostly because I was exactly in the sweet spot of it original intended audience — young boys who liked adventure books similar to Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. Rereading it as an adult just isn’t the same.

Tom Sawyer, the book that introduced the principle characters of Tom and Huck, was a boys book. But Mark Twain changed expectations with the publication of its sequel, Huckleberry Finn, a far darker and deeper book. It dealt with complicated themes — the morality of slavery, and rampant violence and drunkenness. It was an American Candide.

And that is why Tom Sawyer Abroad is disappointing. Twain returned to the style of a light, boys entertainment. The plot, such as it is, is barely there. Huck, (who narrates the tale) still speaks in his folksy way, but instead of masking much deeper wisdom and insight as this style did in Huckleberry Finn, here it is just a sign that Huck is a bumpkin, and is played for laughs. That’s pretty much all that happens — Huck, Tom and Jim have endless conversations in a balloon, and reveal themselves as uneducated fools that we can laugh at.

There are a couple redeeming qualities present here. For one, it is written in Mark Twain’s unique voice, and for Twain fans that is always a plus. And hidden within the laughs are a few Mark Twain commentaries on foibles of his culture, though they are truly minor ones. So if you are a huge Mark Twain fan (like me) or possibly if you are a 12 year old boy, you should read this one. All others needn’t bother.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short tale but really a gem of one, and somehow I missed it in my early reading career. I had to read the ending twice before it sank in. This book really highlights the differences between knowledge (book learning) versus experience (life learning). I love the way Twain has Tom try to explain something he knows, like how maps work, what mirages are, and the use of metaphor, and then either Huck or Jim and sometimes both rebut from their experiences that say otherwise. Both make a lot of sense and you can't help but laugh since you can see both sides of the issue, even knowing that Tom is right. Not always, however, and that makes the reading truly lovely. If you have missed this one, go get it. It's not one you want to miss.

[Mike Majors · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is hilarious, much more humorous than the first two books in the series (Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huck Finn). Take Tom, Huck and Jim, put them in a hot air balloon, send them across the country, over the ocean and deposit them in the skies over the Sahara Desert. Allow Tom to explain what is happening along the way and listen to the other two bumpkins try to make sense of his nonsense and there's laughter aplenty. This is about a two or three hour read (at most), so dig in and enjoy.

[John Yelverton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as good as the original books. In fact, I had to check and recheck to make sure that the same author actually wrote this book. It's that much of a departure.

[Kateryna · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a visit to old friends Tom, Huck and Jim. This time three of them by accident fly to Africa in an extraordinary balloon. I love "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", but this one is nothing compared to them. Pointless book, in my opinion. It felt like imitating one of Jules Verne's stories. And the ending was abrupt and disappointing, as if Mark Twain just needed to finish his story quickly.

[Seon Ji (Dawn) · Rating 2 out of 5]

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[Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story starts out so promising and I particularly appreciated that it was written from the perspective of Huck Finn (who is still the more level headed and teachable of the two children), but then it just up and ended all of a sudden. It should have been at least three times longer, but Twain should have cut most of the useless dialog of Tom trying to convince Huck and Jim some piece of information that he could never know himself even, but just made up. Not a terrible story, but not the greatest either. I really wish they'd gone to more places.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 2 out of 5]

It says this was written by Huck Finn, but I have my doubts. For the most part, it sounded more like huckster than huckleberry. Huck, Tom and Jim take a balloon ride across the Atlantic, through the Sahara, and to Egypt, and basically nothing happens. Oh, there's some carnage along the way, but it's all thrown out with such insouciance and good humor that it's hard to care much or even get involved. At best, it's amusing and mildly diverting. But the whole exercise just feels like Twain cashing in on his past success. I can't blame him for it, but it doesn't make for great reading. Thankfully, it was short, and even a bad impersonation of Huck Finn's voice is still entertaining. But it makes me wonder why I read this, instead of re-reading the real thing. Dare I go on to "Tom Sawyer, Detective"?

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

If Tom Sawyer Detective is to the original Tom/Huck books what Bad News Bears Go to Japan was to the original, then Tom Sawyer is the Mark Twain equivalent of Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol.

Tom, Huck, and the slave Jim get kidnapped by a mad scientist and taken to Africa on a tricked-out airship. Tom gives lessons on longitude and latitude, the time zones, the curvature of the Earth, and why countries really aren't the same color they appear to be on maps. Huck and Jim remain skeptical.

I was really scratching my head on this one until Goodreader and rogue pedagogue Megan K. explained to me that Twain intended it to be some kind of satire on Jules Verne. Not quite as worth reading as Tom Sawyer Detective, but I did chuckle when Tom explained that Moslems are basically anybody who is not Presbyterian.

[Erik Graff · Rating 1 out of 5]

One can only imagine that Twain needed money desperately and quickly when he dashed off the miserable sequels to his magisterial Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Tom Sawyer Abroad is terrible, simply terrible and I imagine Tom Sawyer, Detective is also.

[Tim Velegol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whimsical nonsense from America's premier humorist who couldn't resist public demand for more Huck, Tom, and Jim. It succeeds only because it's Twain.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are good and not so good things about this book. On the good side, it's pretty funny with lots of cute little humorous incidents. It's a short, quick read. On the not so good side, during the course of their more well known adventures, Tom, Huck, and Jim showed quite a bit of character development. None of that is apparent here. Twain is going for the humor and it pits the characters against each other in their very earliest incarnations.

[Julio RGuez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Básicamente consiste en contar una historia de Sawyer, Huck Finn y Jim en África. Los tres se montan en un globo al más puro estilo aeronave de FF y van al Sáhara y Egipto.

El libro está bien, es entretenido, pero no está al nivel de los dos anteriores y ese es su mayor problema. Tom es un personaje muy Quijotesco y muy muy muy pedante y pesado.

A parte, termina todo de una manera muy abrupta.

[AnnaLitMyst · Rating 2 out of 5]

Перші дві книги про Тома Соєра дуже насичені та реалістичні, але ця, на жаль, такою не є.

Все дуже хаотичне, несправжнє та занадто зарозуміле і при цьому дурне одночасно.

Не знаю, чи захочу писати повноцінний відгук, тож поки буде цей - можливо з часом зміню.

Я купила видання Вавилонської бібліотеки і воно розкішне, звісно, тож читати було веселіше

[Perry Whitford · Rating 2 out of 5]

With the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain created two of the seminal works of American literature, equally beloved by children and adults the world over.

Then, twenty years after the first and ten years after the second, he tossed off this incredulous nonsense, with Tom, Huck and Jim leaving the mudflats of the Mississippi in an airship captained by a mad professor.

Their journey takes them over the Atlantic to Africa where they take in the sights (caravans through the Sahara, the Pyramids and the Sphinx) and argue inanely.

I had not read Twain for a good half a dozen years before I picked up this old, battered hardback with all the original illustrations. The narrative is rich with his usual humour and juicy colloquialisms, but al' shucks! what were Tom and Huck doin' in a Jules Verne parody?

If Twain write this merely to clear a debt he must have paid his dues about the time the boys got to Mount Sinai, because all of a sudden the story grinds to halt.

Best forgotten.

[Russell Mark Olson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not completely sure about the legitimacy of the purported rivalry between Twain and Jules Verne, but this book certainly seems to point to one. I couldn't help but picture Verne as the pilot of the air-ship and the ridiculing townsfolk of St. Petersberg as the embodiment of Twain's disdain. The writing is superb and revisiting Tom, Huck, and Jim was (cliche) like visiting with old friends. Unfortunately, once Tom has dispatched with the air-shipman, the story meanders and deviates from plot-form. Fortunately, Twain is such an excellent story teller that the anecdotal format which the text assumes continued to keep my full attention for the remainder of the book. It reminded me of Roughing It in the way in which each passage hints at a moral proverb, but one that is embarrassed to the point of humility. All in all, great book, great Twain.

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Sawyer, an American classic that I found very enjoyable. I was quite interested in the boy's life on the frontier and how different it was from now. It only makes me wish that today we'd be able to run in the woods and play in the river like they did but here in suburbs of Southern Callifonia, if we wanted to have a great adventure the closest thing we'd get was the sidewalk. I feel that kids today have missed out on a lot because what now with videogames, computers, ipods, cellphones, tv's, and elctric powered toy's, kids don't get to experience the same joy in the wild outdoors. To roam free in nature's beauty, that is a life for a child. I can't wait until I get to read Huckleyberry Finn!

[David B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom, Huck, and Jim are swept up in a futuristic air balloon and whisked across the ocean to Arabia, where they tour the Sahara.

This book is a complete break from "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn," two great works whose stature as literary milestones don't prevent them from being vastly entertaining. This sequel begins very well, but goes off the rails just about the time the boys go up in the air. Mark Twain's great humor peeks through often, most notably in some entertaining debates among the boys, but this remains a forgettable juvenile adventure that appears to have been hastily written and pales in comparison to its predecessors.

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book out loud, and what fun that was, haha! I enjoyed the dialect this book was written in (though I also questioned myself, as I was reading it to the same kids I trying to teach proper grammar to... haha). There were some very fun little adventures in here, described vibrantly. The dialogue was fun. The ending was a bit abrupt, it felt like, and the story itself was more of a meandering adventure than a plot. I don’t necessarily have anything against that, but I prefer books with strong plots.

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Away from social institutions, Tom is as much know-it-all as subversive.

[Kit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tom Sawyer Abroad is t e r r i b l e. stars are for the other things in this 1918 compendium edition, including some funny speeches and essays and Tom Sawyer, Detective.

[Ana Filipa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5*

[Brian Fagan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just before my first return to a bookstore in the 15 months of the pandemic, I did a quick review of my favorite writers' bibliographies. I was very surprised to learn that there was still a Mark Twain title that I didn't own! And the bookstore had it! Twain wrote the novella Tom Sawyer Abroad in 1894, a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Tom realizes that the only way out of his doldrums is to come up with a big excursion that will allow him to regain the top storytelling position in town. He dreams up a plan, and takes Huck and Jim aside to bring them into the fold. His idea is to go on a CRUSADE to the Holy Land and steal it back from the "paynims". I'm guessing that means the pagans (?).

They hear that a scientist has built a contraption called a hot air balloon just down the road from Hannibal in St. Louis. They enter the gondola on a tour, and just as they are about to step out, the balloon ascends with them and the professor, and they're on their way east!

Huck narrates the story, which describes their trip across eastern America, the Atlantic, the Sahara desert and into Egypt. While the events are less than riveting, Twain carries the day with humor. I was laughing out loud by page 3. It's been awhile since I've read Twain, and I had forgotten how well he does slapstick. And, as in his more famous books, Twain's backwoods characters amuse when they try to impress each other with newfound vocabulary, e.g., becoming "putrified" with fear.

[Nathan Leopard · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange book compared to the others.