Tom Sawyer Abroad: AND Tom Sawyer, Detective

Mark Twain's 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its 1884 follow-up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two of American literature's most famous works and the latter one of its most acclaimed. It may thus seem strange that 1894's Tom Sawyer Abroad and 1896's Tom Sawyer, Detective are now almost obscure. The truth is that this is not entirely undeserved. Huck Finn is a masterpiece of world literature, and anyone expecting them to be anywhere near it will be sorely disappointed. They lack the more famous work's seriousness and ambitiousness, making them inevitably minor. However, like nearly everything else Twain wrote, they are eminently readable, very entertaining, and often funny. Fans of Twain's lighter work, especially Tom Sawyer, will love them, and there is something for all to appreciate it. They are notable for taking the series and its characters in surprising new directions, for example leaving the rural South for distant Egypt in Abroad and adding character development in both. Though not great literary works in other respects, they perform surprisingly well in the latter area. Those eager for more adventures from Tom, Huck, and Jim will certainly warm to them. Like the book that bears his name, they are narrated by Huck with all his delightfully provincial grammar and spelling; "prostitution" for "prosecution" in Detective's court scene is my laugh aloud favorite. His naïveté and ignorance also come into play in skillfully unprecedented ways, particularly in Detective. The two novels are now often packaged together, which makes sense in many ways. Both are short - about one hundred pages each - and of course have many of the same characters and numerous other similarities. Those who like one will probably like the other, making an omnibus convenient and, depending on the edition, perhaps cost efficient. Those who want only bare bones can easily find cheaper editions, but this is the one for enthusiasts. Unlike most versions but like other Mark Twain Library Series entries, this includes the original illustrations, which Twain considered important. Perhaps more notably, they have been carefully edited to ensure accuracy, correcting errors perpetuated for a century, including some expurgations. As for the stories themselves, like most of Twain, they can be read and enjoyed on several levels. Most simply and obviously, they are rollicking, picaresque adventures of the sort later classed as Young Adult or Juvenile. Similarities aside, each is a distinct part of genres then immensely popular - travel and detective fiction respectively. They can be read on these terms alone or as burlesques. There are thus some significant differences despite all the similarities. However, both are notably entertaining and quite humorous even in this limited sense, particularly the dialogue. While far from politically correct by current standards, they can easily be enjoyed by the very young as well as those of all ages who will take it on their

I was surprised to discover the existance of these two books: Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer Detective. Apparently, they were both very popular back when they were first published, in the late 1890s, but have become mostly forgotten. They're more novellas than anything; Detective isn't even 100 pages long. The illustrations are really good, and I plan on buying the other volumes in the Mark Twain Library, each of which include the original illustrations that were present in the first editions. Both Abroad and Detective are entertaining, but they're not in the mold of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. You know how in Huckleberry Finn, Huck goes through all these little misadventures, all the while growing up and gaining all kinds of wisdom, and then in the end, the book takes a harsh turn and goes back to the juvenile exploits of Tom Sawyer, when he and Huck try to free Jim? It's like the end of the book really doesn't have much to do with the rest of it, it's just Huck and Tom doing dumb, yet funny, kid stuff. Well, both Abroad and Detective are like that; only very occasionally do you get any of Huck's unique flashes of insight. Jim himself only appears in Abroad, which is a fantasy tale in which he, Tom, and Huck happen to be kidnapped onto a high-tech balloon (!) and go across the Atlantic to Africa. There's really not much of a plot or resolution, they just float along over the desert, Tom tells them about the Arabian Nights, and Jim gets stranded on the head of the Sphinx for a little while. Abroad picks up not long after the events in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and apparently Detective picks up not long after Abroad, though the events that transpired in Abroad are never mentioned in Tom Sawyer, Detective. Maybe Twain considered Abroad more of a whimsical tale, something that never really happened. Who knows...but I think Detective was the better of the two, even though Jim doesn't even appear in the book, and it's more of a mystery novel than anything. Huck basically plays the role of the reporter in Detective, just relating all of the incidents he witnessed in an unusual murder/crime, and describing Tom Sawyer's scene-stealing exploits in the trial that follows. Many of the characters that appeared in the last half of Adv. of Huck Finn make a return appearance in Detective. But anyway, both books are enjoyable to read, especially considering that both are written in the 1st person, from Huck's perspective, yet don't read them expecting the depth and emotion that are found in the Adv. of Huck Finn. I think these books were written for a younger audience, and that's how they read. But, for a frustrating, yet very interesting look into what might have been, had Twain finished his other two planned sequels to Huckleberry Finn, you should check out the book "Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians," which contains two unfinished sequels that are both heads and tails better t