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Quotations from Huckleberry Finn

The following passages were quoted in at least one of the contemporary reviews of the novel. Using the links after each quotation, you can either go to the review in which the passage was quoted, or see the passage in the context of the chapter in which it originally appeared. You don't know me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of 'Tom Sawyer,' " but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth mainly. There were things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another, without it was "Aunt Polly" or the widow, or maybe "Mary." "Aunt Polly"--Tom's "Aunt Polly," she is--and "Mary," and the "widow Douglas," is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book; with stretchers, as I said before.

Review

MT's Text

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Now the way the book winds up is this: "Tom" and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got $6,000 a piece--all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, "Judge Thatcher," he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round--more than a body could tell what to do with. The "widow Douglas," she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal, regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so, when I could stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But "Tom Sawyer," he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

Review

MT's Text

This page has everything one would need to construct a research paper on Twain's masterpiece. Each passage has a link to the original review, so an essay about the contemporary reaction to the novel is ripe for the taking.