The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) is Mark Twain's most popular book, and its hero is a national icon, celebrated as a distinctively American figure both at home and abroad. Tom Sawyer'***old spirit, winsome smile, and inventive solutions to the problems of everyday life in fictional St Petersburg - whether getting his friends to whitewash a fence for him, or escaping the demands of his vigilant Aunt Polly - have won him the hearts of generations.
The very success of Mark Twains's first novel has obscured its contradictions and the extent to which the author's response to contemporary cultural developments was a mixed one. Tom Sawyer is not only a deft ***edy and a powerful celebration of childhood. It also reflects how Mark Twain was in the process of finding his distinctive voice, a voice with which he could express the conflicts he felt about ***ing of age in America