ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri (based on the actual town of Hannibal, Missouri) , on the shore of the Mississippi River "forty to fifty years ago" (the novel having been published in 1884) . Huckleberry "Huck" Finn (the protagonist and first-person narrator) and his friend, Thomas "Tom" Sawyer, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures (detailed in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) . Huck explains how he is placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her stringent sister, Miss Watson, are attempting to "sivilize" him and teach him religion. Finding civilized life confining, his spirits are raised somewhat when Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night past Miss Watson's slave Jim, to meet up with Tom's gang of self-proclaimed "robbers."