Perry Whitford's Reviews > Tom Sawyer Abroad

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.