But Huckleberry Finndoes not fall into the category of juvenile fiction. I cannot speak from memory: I suspect that a fear on the part of my parents lest I should acquire a premature taste for tobacco, and perhaps other habits of the hero of the story, kept the book out of my way. Huckleberry Finnis, no doubt, a book which boys enjoy. In the writing of Huckleberry FinnMark Twain had two elements which, when treated with his sensibility and his experience, formed a great book: these two are the Boy and the River. But when we find one book by a prolific author which is very much superior to all the rest, we look for the peculiar accident or concourse of accidents which made that book possible. There are pages in Tom Sawyerand in Life on the Mississippiwhich are, within their limits, as good as anything with which one can compare them in Huckleberry Finn 2and in other books there are drolleries just as good of their kind. I do not suggest that it is his only book of permanent interest but it is the only one in which his genius is completely realized, and the only one which creates its own category. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnis the only one of Mark Twain’s various books which can be called a masterpiece. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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