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| The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain Library) | 
| Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: University of California Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $1.87
You Save: $15.08 (89%)
New (26) Collectible (7) from $1.87
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 31538
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0520235754
Dewey Decimal Number: 809
EAN: 9780520235755
ASIN: 0520235754
Publication Date: April 30, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New! Immediate Shipment!
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Product Description
This is Mark Twain's first novel about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, and it has become one of the world's best-loved books. It is a fond reminiscence of life in Hannibal, Missouri, an evocation of Mark Twain's own boyhood along the banks of the Mississippi during the 1840s. "Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred," he tells us. This is a book one never forgets: Tom whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence, Tom and Huck's dreadful oath, their cure for warts ("spunk water" and dead cats), Tom's puppy love for Becky Thatcher, the boys playing "pirate" on Jackson's Island.
This Mark Twain Library text is the only edition since the first (1876) to be based directly on the author's manuscript and to include all of the "200 rattling pictures" Mark Twain commissioned from one of his favorite illustrators, True W. Williams.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 the adventures of tom sawyer May 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
tom sawyer is a young boy who always causes trouble. when he teams up with huckleberry finn the trouble doubles.tom is lazy and doesent like to work so he tricks every boy in town to make it sound like its a privlage. tom and huck decide that they are going to run away and be pirates. the town seaches the river and find their boat whih floated domn the river. after a week the town decided the boys were dead and held a funeral and tow snuk into to his house and the boys walked into the funeral. after the funeral the boys decided to be tresure hunters and find a treasure. they decided to search a hunted house before they find a treasure injuan joe finds it first. injuan joe runs away. tom and a girl named Becky get lost in a cave and find injuan joe in the cave. tom and becky get out of the cave and the town locked the cave shut. when he told them that injuan joe was in the cave the town opened it and injuan joe layed dead on the floor by the door. om and huck snaek in the cave and find the treasure and that basically ends the story.
Tom Sawyer book is good April 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was really good. I like the adventure in it. The book was very exciting. It really kept my interest. This book made me realize what it would be like in the 1850s.
Great American Novel February 7, 2008
This book works brilliantly on two levels. The first being a simple story of boyhood adventures the second as a subversive multi-layered literary masterpiece. You can see this dichotomy clearly from the other reviews on this book.
Mark Twain is able to write a seemingly straightforward adventure book that consistently questions and pokes fun at the conventional wisdom of 19th century America. He rips on the hypocrisy of Christianity, slavery, class structure and most of the widely accepted paradigms of American society.
I love his sense of irony and the subtleness of his ascerbic wit. My guess is that even when he wrote this book most of his readers did not understand the subtler messages he was conveying. Good for him, otherwise it probably would not have been the best seller it was.
I urge the readers of this book to really take a look at the subtext. You will find a treasure chest of thought provoking jabs aimed at American society that are, for the most part, still relevant today.
 The first of two by Mark Twain featuring Tom and Huck January 19, 2008
This prequel to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn focuses on Tom Sawyer. The story chronicles the day to day events of the protagonist, and with Twain's vivid imagery and colloquial style, it will seem like you are there with Tom.
The first time I read this, I found this simply to be a rather light-hearted book with some drama mixed in with romance, perfect for kids just reaching their tens and beyond. The most I got out of it was the plot, how Tom becomes a hero after seemingly on a whim, decides to run away onto an island where they can do anything they want. Later, upon his return, he testifies against a murderer and finds hidden treasure. (How can someone not blame me for not saying that that this is almost a kid tale, reminiscent of the Hardy Brothers... brings back nostalgic memories).
Anyways, when I read it again, this time older, I found this to be a classical tale to be a bildungsroman. The telling of the story of the growth of a boy, named Tom. Twain incorporates many symbols within the story, filling into the archetype of the bildungsroman structure, from the village, the gold, to the cave. While the village could be interpreted to be a minuscule model of the United States, it could also be simply the place where Tom experiences his growth. The cave symbolizes the trial that he has to pass in order to reach into adulthood and be incorporated into society as a full-fledged adult. The gold that Tom finds in the end, may well also be the end of his journey and the reaping of his rewards. It is his happy ending.
This book, construed with the image of a small town in America and written in that colloquial style too, simply enthralls the readers and lures them in. It should be read by all children of all ages, well, considering that when they actually have the ability to read. Twain's book may not need to be limited to just children, as it also has some rather mature themes and motifs underlying the story. These may include the presence of society's hypocrisy present within the story, the presence of crime ranging from misdemeanors like playing hooky and all the way to murder, to messages about freedom, how society may inhibit that freedom.
These are some things, to think about, regardless, I strongly urge anyone with the slightest possibility of buying this book to purchase it. It may also be purchased in conjunction with its sequel. A warning, however, the second book is not as "adventury" as the first, because its themes are a little bit more mature than the first.
Fun, entertaining read that will make you smile January 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I first read this book in high school and at the time, I found it boring and didn't like reading it, but then again I was forced to read it for English class. Anyone knows being forced to do something isn't as fun as willingly doing so yourself! LOL
But, years later I decided to re-read this book on a whim, and to my delight I found myself enjoying this book immensely. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer chronicles the day-to-day happenings of a young boy in Missouri and his mischievous and playful antics about town. Tom Sawyer is a rascal. He has no qualms about cutting school and romping in the forest to play pirate or tricking his peers into wanting to whitewash a fence (which I found totally hilarious!). Despite his reckless and selfish ways, he is a character that arouses feelings of sympathy and amusement.
I found myself sympathizing with his woes (of course, all which came about because of Tom Sawyer himself) and smiling at his antics and beliefs (his superstitious beliefs, for instance his belief that burying a dead cat in the graveyard at midnight will cure warts!).
Interestingly, I found that in reading this book I started recalling my *own* childhood and the games and activities I participated in as a little girl. This book doesn't have any great moral lesson to teach the reader, or some profound idea to enlighten us with. It's allure lies in its ability to compel the reader into looking back on one's own childhood with feelings of nostalgia and longing for the carefree and innocent days of childhood where anything is possible. This is a book of pure entertainment. Twain wrote a brief preface to the book and he stated that this was one of his reasons in writing this book: to hopefully create these kinds of memories in the reader, to have the reader wistfully think back on their childhood and remember the way they once were as children.
Anyways, the book was very easy reading, the language simple to understand and not flowery in its descriptions. The characters and locale leap from the pages and come alive. You are there with Tom Sawyer and are privy to life in a small town off the Mississippi, and it's all so vividly and simply told, that when you reach the very last page and finish, you wish the story could go on and you could get more glimpses into Tom Sawyer's world. In fact, the next book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and although it's not a sequel to this book, it does continue with some familiar characters introduced in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
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