Initial Impressions: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain – March 2025

[Tom, "Big Daddy"]

Comments on this board should be written with the assumption that not all readers have finished the book. Please take care not to reveal information that might lessen other readers’ enjoyment.

[Cathrine ☯️]

Would like to get to this one but questioning the different editions listed, from "robotic" Jim—"original, unabridged, and uncensored"—"augmented" — "children's"—various audios.
Anyone have opinions or recommendations?

[Diane, "Miss Scarlett"]

Do not get abridged or altered, a lot of those have been changed to be more politically correct or toned down for schools these days. I would go with original uncensored.

[Penny]

The one I decided on is made by Dreamscape Media with Eric G. Dove

[Lori]

This is the copy I own

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

A edition done by the Mark Twain Library in California.

Here’s the description of it:
“This is the first edition of Huckleberry Finn ever to be based on Mark Twain's entire original manuscript—including its first 663 pages, which had been lost for more than a hundred years when they were discovered in 1990 in a Los Angeles attic. The text of the Mark Twain Library edition (first published in 1985) has been re-edited using this manuscript, restoring thousands of details of wording, spelling, and punctuation that had been corrupted by Mark Twain's typist, typesetters, and proofreaders. The revised Mark Twain Library Huckleberry Finn is sure to become the standard edition for all students and readers of Mark Twain.

The authoritative new edition of this beloved work includes all of the 174 first-edition illustrations by Edward Windsor Kemble, which the author called "rattling good." It also contains a new gathering of manuscript pages, photographically reproduced, and an appendix of passages from the manuscript, including the long-lost "ghost story," which illustrate how extensively Mark Twain revised his work. The editors have also revised and updated their explanatory notes, the maps of the Mississippi River valley, and the glossary of slang and dialect words.”

[Lori]

I’m planning to join! I’ve got a big stack of books I want to read in March. Ready, set, go!!!!

[Diane, "Miss Scarlett"]

I won't be rereading but will follow the discussion. Lori, your edition sounds wonderful. With illustrations!

[Terry]

I would like to join, but not sure I can work it into March.

[Cathrine ☯️]

I skimmed a couple of articles, one which supported the belief that Twain decided Jim's ghost story should not be included or he would have made it happen, one that suggested the final edit was not what he wanted because the publisher's had all the power over the final manuscript and he was at their mercy, but the most interesting was the Go Fund Me project to produce the robotic version to clean up all the not politically correct language so it could be reinstated in schools. All of this has been interesting in itself.
The Audible audio version won the earphones award which I think Tom recently posted as listened to. What say you Tom? I'm leaning towards that one with all its 5 star reviews.

[Terry]

I decided to join by listening to the Audible version thanks to Catherine’s tip. It was the only possible way I could work it into my reading schedule. I barely started it today but probably won’t get very far into it until Monday. Elijah Wood is a good narrator.

[Debi]

I'm reading the 1st US edition, published 1885, found on Gutenberg here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76

[Debi]

Chapter XVII

Emmeline Grangerford was Goth before Goth was a thing,
The loveliest creature was known how for she could sing.
Emmeline Grangerford, happy at last with Goth's king,
She silently sleeps with Death and its forever sting.

ha!

[Lori]

Hoping to start by Monday!

[Lexy]

I’m reading a copy with illustrations 1948 Grosset & Dunlap. On a page of it’s own this is written:
NOTICE
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
By Order of the Author
Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance

[Lori]

Just a little background from the forward in my book:

Twain began writing Huckleberry Finn in July 1876 working in “fits and starts”. It was a gradual process of 7 years in which he had a total of 1,361 pages!!!
He also finished and published 3 books during this time period: A Tramp Abroad (1880), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), and Life on the Mississippi (1883).
Huck was finally finished in 1885, Twain was 49 and at his height of his career. This is considered his masterpiece.

[Lori]

Lexy, my book’s forward addresses that dedication and that Twain had originally wrote a different one saluting the people and place of Hannibal, Missouri which served him as models for many characters.
It suggests that G. G. Was probably meant for George Griffin, the Clemens’s butler who was a former slave, veteran of the Civil War and a member of their family.

It seems Twain wished to begin with an ironic “Notice” humorously condemning the past race-based social system of the South.

[Lexy]

Thanks for the explanation, Lori! I was wondering who GG could possibly be!

[Terry]

I love the Notice!

[Lori]

Boy, as I get into the story and meet Tom, the widow and Miss Watson as well as Huck's father, I do not remember very much of this at all. I am so glad to be reading it now and wondering if I really ever read it before.

[Lori]

I’m in Ch. Q17 where Huck is at the home of a family with the boy Buck who smokes corn cob pipes! I am just chuckling through a lot of the scenes because I can not imagine getting out of all of the jams he and Jim get themselves into. And Huck certainly has quite a vivid imagination to be able to make up so many stories about himself!

[Debi]

Lori wrote: "Boy, as I get into the story and meet Tom, the widow and Miss Watson as well as Huck's father, I do not remember very much of this at all. I am so glad to be reading it now and wondering if I reall..."

Hi Lori, I've finished it now, but I had the same feeling. I read it in college but reading it 40 years later it was like, as you say, I had never read it before. I got a lot of enjoyment out of it this time, whereas in college it was a blur, a rush, a chore. I thought it got more witty and funny as it goes on and you get into the roll of it.

[Debi]

Lori wrote: "I’m in Ch. Q17 where Huck is at the home of a family with the boy Buck who smokes corn cob pipes! I am just chuckling through a lot of the scenes because I can not imagine getting out of all of the..."

That rascal Huck sure can think on his feet!