About The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

By Mark Twain · first published in 1876 · Children's

Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly in St. Petersburg, a sleepy town on the Mississippi River. He would rather swim, fight and plan adventures than go to school or church, and his schemes carry him, along with his friend Huckleberry Finn, from pranks and pirate games to a graveyard at midnight and a buried treasure.

Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, published the novel in 1876. He modelled St. Petersburg on Hannibal, Missouri, the river town where he grew up, and later gave Huck a book of his own, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Twain died in 1910 and the novel is in the public domain. The preview opens with Chapter One, as Aunt Polly searches the house for Tom.