The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Most of the adventures recorded in this book really happened; I personally experienced two of them, and the others I know from schoolmates. Huck Finn is sketched after a real person, and Tom Sawyer is not based on a single individual: he is a blend of traits of three boys I knew, so it belongs to the intricate type of architecture.

The strange superstitions I have mentioned were widespread among children and slaves in the West at the time when the events of this book take place, some thirty to forty years ago.

Although my book is primarily intended to entertain boys and girls, I hope it will not be set aside by men and women, for I also meant to remind adults with great pleasure how they once were, how they felt, thought and spoke, and even what odd tangles their feet sometimes got into.