Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a picaresque novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. It is commonly named among the Great American Novels, and it is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. Being the direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, it is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other later Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer.
The book is noted for "changing the course of children's literature" in the United States for the "deeply felt portrayal of boyhood". It is also known for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.
Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. The book was widely criticized upon release because of its extensive use of coarse language and racial epithets. Throughout the 20th century, and despite arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist, criticism of the book continued due to both its perceived use of racial stereotypes and its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger".
In 1840s St. Petersburg, Missouri, Huckleberry Finn has received a considerable sum from the treasure discovered in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson become his guardians. Despite preferring life as an errant boy, Huck stays so he can be part of Tom Sawyer's gang. Huck's father, "Pap", an abusive alcoholic, tries to appropriate Huck's fortune. When this fails, Pap imprisons him in a remote cabin.
After a delirium tremens crisis in which Pap tries to kill Huck, Huck fakes his own murder and settles on Jackson's Island, where he reunites with Miss Watson's slave Jim, who ran away after overhearing she was planning to sell him. Huck and Jim decide to go down the Mississippi River to Cairo, in the free state of Illinois. After a flood, they find a timber raft and a house floating downstream. Inside the house, Jim finds a man who was shot to death, but prevents Huck from seeing. Huck sneaks into town disguised as a girl, where he discovers from Judith Loftus that there is a reward for Jim's capture and Jim is suspected of killing Huck. They flee on their raft.
Huck and Jim come across a grounded steamboat on which two thieves discuss murdering a third. Finding their raft has drifted away, they flee in the thieves' boat. They find their raft and sink the thieves' boat, then Huck tricks a night watchman into a rescue attempt, which fails when the steamboat sinks. Huck and Jim are separated in a fog. When they reunite, Huck tricks Jim into thinking he dreamed it. Jim is disappointed when Huck admits the truth. Huck is surprised by Jim's strong feelings and apologizes.
Huck is conflicted about supporting a runaway slave, but when two white men seeking runaways come upon the raft, his lies succeed in convincing them to leave. Jim and Huck realize they have passed Cairo. With no way to go upriver, they decide to continue downriver. The raft is struck by a passing steamship, again separating them. On the riverbank, Huck meets the Grangerfords, who are engaged in a 30-year feud with the Shepherdsons. After a Grangerford daughter elopes with a Shepherdson boy, all the Grangerford men are killed in a Shepherdson ambush. Huck escapes and reunites with Jim, who has found and repaired the raft.
Jim and Huck are joined by two confidence men claiming to be a King and a Duke, and they rope Huck and Jim into aiding in several scams. In one town, the King and the Duke cheat the townsfolk over two nights with a short, overpriced stage performance. On the third, the grifters collect the admission fee from previous audience members bent on revenge, then flee. In the next town, the swindlers impersonate the brothers of the recently deceased Peter Wilks and attempt to steal his estate. Huck tries to retrieve the money for Wilks's orphaned nieces. Two other men claiming to be Wilks's brothers arrive, causing an uproar. Huck flees but is caught by the King and the Duke. He escapes but finds they have sold Jim to the Phelpses. Huck vows to free Jim, despite believing he will go to hell for it.
The Phelpses mistake Huck for their nephew Tom, who is expected to visit, and Huck plays along. Their nephew is Tom Sawyer; when he arrives, he pretends to be his half-brother Sid and develops a theatrical plan to free Jim. Huck attempts to warn the King and the Duke that Jim alerted local residents to their scam but sees them tarred and feathered and being run out of town on a rail.
Tom is wounded during Jim's escape. Instead of fleeing, Jim stays to tend to him and is arrested and returned to the Phelpses. Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals Huck's and Tom's true identities. She informs the group that Miss Watson has died and that she freed Jim in her will. Tom admits he knew but wanted to "rescue" Jim in style. Jim tells Huck that Pap was the dead man in the floating house. Huck declares he will flee to Indian Territory to escape adoption by the Phelpses.
Huckleberry Finn, "Huck" to his friends, is a boy about "thirteen or fourteen or along there" years old (Chapter 17). He has been brought up by his father, the town drunk, and has a difficult time fitting into society. Huck's good nature offers a contrast to the inadequacies and inequalities in society.
Tom Sawyer is Huck's best friend and peer, the main character of other Twain novels and the leader of the town boys in adventures. He is mischievous, good-hearted, and "the best fighter and the smartest kid in town".
Widow Douglas is the woman who takes Huck in after he helps save her from a violent home invasion. She tries her best to "sivilize" (civilize) Huck, believing it is her Christian duty to do so.
Miss Watson is the widow's sister, a tough old spinster who also lives with them. She is fairly hard on Huck, causing him to resent her a good deal. Mark Twain may have drawn inspiration for this character from several people he knew in his life.
Jim is Miss Watson's physically large but mild-mannered slave. Huck becomes very close to Jim when they reunite after Jim flees Miss Watson's household to seek refuge from slavery, and Huck and Jim become fellow travelers on the Mississippi River. Jim is shown to be honorable, perceptive, and intelligent, despite his lack of education and the prejudice he faces.
"Pap" Finn is Huck's father, a brutal alcoholic drifter. He resents Huck getting any kind of education. His only genuine interest in his son involves begging or extorting money to feed his alcohol addiction.
Judith Loftus plays a small part in the novel—as the kind and perceptive woman whom Huck talks to in order to find out about the search for Jim—but many critics believe her to be the best drawn female character in the novel.
The Grangerfords, an aristocratic Kentuckian family headed by the sexagenarian Colonel Saul Grangerford, take Huck in after he is separated from Jim on the Mississippi. Huck becomes close friends with the youngest male of the family, Buck Grangerford, who is Huck's age. By the time Huck meets them, the Grangerfords have been engaged in an age-old blood feud with another local family, the Shepherdsons.